Best Books

Ben Kane’s Eagles at War came out in the middle of the year. Full disclosure

requires me to say that Ben is a close friend, but I have many close friends

who are writers and I don’t always write their books up in the end-of-year round-up. This is Ben firmly on home

Roman territory, this time in the forests of Germany and the build up to, and

the fallout from, the disastrous Varian campaign. It’s easily his best book to

date and if you know anyone at all who’s inspired by tales of raw courage and

legionary life, you have to get them this.

of 2015On the whole, I’m not a great fan of the seasonal consumerism of what was once the mid-winter solstice and a chance for introspection, regeneration and renewal. But if you’re going to think of people, think of them with a book: it’s the best way to heal a worn heart and a tired mind, to open doorways into other worlds and to spark joy for the year ahead.

This is my pick from the books I’ve read in 2015, organised into sections that will help you choose the right book for the right person.

This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus Climate by Naomi Klein, is one of those books that everyone should be on everyone’s list. I read it in January as part of a new-year brain fest that also included The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolbert and the anti-fracking video Gasland (it’s on Netflix. Watch it as a matter of urgency) and then walked about in a daze for the rest of the month. These are not easy books, but they are necessary and life will feel different on the other side of them. Read them both, then let’s talk about what we can do.

Fantasy fans will love the first of Anthony Ryan’s immensely impressive series, Blood Song. It’s been out for a while, but I had a kind of fantasy binge with this and The Queen of the Tearling by the outstanding new author, Erika Johansen. These are only for fantasy readers, but if you like Guy Gavriel Kay, or Joe Abercrombie, even if you liked Game of Thrones, these are fresh and different with strong characters and non-cliched plot lines.

You’d think (I thought) that there wasn’t much else you could do with the ‘young boy/girl grows up not knowing her/his heritage, and has to grow into his/her birthright’ but actually, these both do new and very wonderful things with it and both are the start of a series, so well worth the effort . They’re not yet at the level of Patrick Ness and The Knife of Never Letting Go, or the amazing Maggie Stiefvater with Scorpio Races, but not much can touch either of these, to be honest.

Later on in the year, I was sent Tuesday Falling, a new novel by S Williams – and loved it. This covers similar ground to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but it’s far fresher, set in the UK and doesn’t have 150,000 words of political padding round a loose plot. The plot is tight and fun and racy and if you’re not in love with Tuesday by the end you’re a) irredeemably straight (or gay if you’re a man) and/or b) have no heart.

FANTASY

HISTORICAL CRIME

WORLD WAR II

ROMAN BLOCKBUSTER

In the autumn, I read Post Capitalism: A Guide to our Future

by Paul Mason which is another non-fiction book that ought to be on everyone’s reading list. It’s that

or a whole set of tomes on Modern Monetary Theory. If we’re going to break free of the grip of neoliberal,

free market thinking, then we have to start somewhere and Paul

Mason, the economics editor of Channel 4 news, has the breadth

of understanding and the readable style that makes this an ideal

starting point (though not until after you’ve read Naomi Klein.).

CONTEMPORARY THRILLER

Tom Harper is another of the current generation’s stellar

novelist. I loved his take on Plato in the dual time line The

Orpheus Descent and Black River delivers a similar fast-paced but

intelligent, reflective thriller. Kind of Indiana Jones meets

Andrew Taylor (and if you know how much I love Andrew’s work,

there is no higher praise). This one is set in the Amazon jungle with a glorious set of reprobates

and malcontents searching for the lost treasures of the Inca’s

and finding that their battles are more with each other than the

drug-lords, local indians and multinational oil company bad

guys. The thinking man/woman’s thriller, that works on every level.

I met Oscar de Muriel at the crime writing festival in Harrogate and promptly read his debut gothic/Victorian crime novel The Strings of Murder. It’s set in Edinburgh, which is a pretty good reason to read it anyway, but it’s the start of what is going to be a cracking series a kind of Victorian Morse or Lewis, but with far, far more engaging central detectives. I’ve just read a proof of the sequel: Fever of the Blood and can say with confidence that this is a name to watch out for – his writing is energetic, literate and engaging and his characters lift in all possible dimensions from the page. Fever won’t be out until February, but you can buy Strings for someone for Christmas and then follow up with a ‘make the wet days go away’ present in the dark, dreich days of winter.

Not-quite-last is Night Heron by Adam Brookes. I only found this the other day but it’s easily one of the best spy novels I’ve ever read and I can’t think quite why I didn’t find it before. Set in China and the UK, it’s bang up to date and just reeks of authenticity. The characterization is deft and sure, the locations are absolutely plausible and the plotting is perfect. The writing is swift, assured, clever without being overly self-absorbed and it just flows across the page. Thoroughly recommended.

If you know any World War II buffs who want non-fiction, then The Spy Who Loved by Claire Mulley is a definite pick. Her biography of Christine Granville, one of the most courageous, and astonishing women of the SOE, is thoroughly researched and beautifully written.

NON-FICTION

I met Andrew Taylor in the summer, too – and here’s another friend whose writing just keeps on growing stronger. His books are that rare delight: a guaranteed good read amidst all the almost-made-its of the publishing world. With The Silent Boy, he brings us a sequel to the outstanding The Scent of Death, taking his central character forward into Britain just after the French Revolution when the ripples of that cataclysm were felt through all layers of British society. The silent boy in question is brought from France to Britain, having witnessed something so appalling that he cannot (or will not?) speak of it. The crime puzzle at the heart is rich and fulfilling, but it’s the sense of time and place that makes this stand out from the crowd. Andrew has won the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger for best historical crime novel three times, which gives you some idea of how good he is.

Robert Ryan writes a series of post-Sherlockian detective novels in which Dr Watson has struck out on his own,

returned to the trenches of WWI in his old role in the Royal Army Medical

Corps and is solving the crimes that often go unnoticed amidst the fog of

war. Sherlock isn’t quite geriatric, but not far off. A Study in Murder is his third novel in the series, although if you’re buying this for someone who

hasn’t read them yet, you’d need to get the first one – they’re too good

not to read them in order. The first is Dead Man’s Land and it’s just brilliant

– anyone who likes the world wars, historical crime, Sherlock… any thing

of that ilk, will love this.

And still in and around WW2, Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans is a heart-breakingly good, astute, beautiful gem of a book that was long listed for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for fiction and, in my view, should have won. Set in the 1940s, it’s the story of a young boy brought up by a suffragist professor of a god-mother in an interestingly fluid moral landscape. By a series of mishaps, he is evacuated to St Albans, where he ends up under the roof of a woman with similarly fluid morals and a streetwise sense of what they can get away with, that matches his ability to pull off scams. It’s funny, endearing and searingly accurate and I loved it.

And to end with: the short list of the HWA Debut Crown. I was Chair of the judges, so it’s reasonable that I think every single one of these books is outstanding… but even had I not had anything to do with it, I’d want to read them, and want everyone else to read them.

The winner was The Spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson and every page is a joy. Like Jason’s book, this is set in the immediate aftermath of WW2, when the world – in this case, Berlin – was trying to rescue something from the rubble of war. If ever there needed to be a clarion call against acts of bombing, this is it, but it’s far more than that: a crime novel at its heart, it’s also an exploration of friendship, relationship and vengeance, beautifully crafted and perfectly written.

For fiction, Devastation Road, by Jason Hewitt is an outstanding

literary novel set in the aftermath of WW2. I can’t speak too highly

of the quality of Jason’s writing: his characters are achingly real, and the

road-novel takes on new heights with this superb follow up to his cracking

debut, The Dynamite Room.

But the rest are on par, truly. Details are all here, in Historia Magazine.

So that’s it, the mid-winter round-up. There are thousands of good books out there, but these are some of the ones that have changed my life through the year. Enjoy!