Book reviews

Published on Saturday 23 January 2010 10:22

Captured by Neil Cross is published by Simon & Schuster, priced £12.99

Reaching into the darkest recesses of the human mind is something we are all guilty of sometimes.

In Captured, Neil Cross takes us on that journey as the main character sets out to right all the perceived wrongs in his life before he dies.

But the consequences of every action, particularly when they are based on misconception or misunderstanding, are brought shatteringly home through several strings of the complex plot.

The gory detail and lifelike descriptions paint a stark picture of the life of portrait artist Kenny Drummond.

A testimony of the human spirit's ability to bear pain and even the respect and love you can feel for your sworn enemy, Captured is gripping stuff. But as the main character spends most of the story attempting to fill a void in his life, I couldn't help feeling there was something missing from this story which could have made it perfect.

8/10 Review by Roddy Brooks

The Disappeared by MR Hall is published by Macmillan, priced 12.99

The 40-something coroner from Severn Vale District in Bristol who investigates death is back at the scene of crime in The Disappeared.

Jenny Cooper, the recently divorced mother suffering from severe emotional trauma made her debut in The Coroner over a year ago, and now returns in MR Hall's second instalment of what has been dubbed the "coroner series".

When distraught mother Mrs Amira Jamal appeals for an inquest into the death of her son, who has been missing for more than seven years, Jenny's interest is aroused and she launches a probe that leads her to the murky waters of corruption, espionage and conspiracy in the British Security Service.

Former lawyer-turned-screenwriter Hall brilliantly captures post-9/11 paranoia as he explores the theme of Muslim radicalism in this intricately plotted detective thriller.

6/10 (Review by Nilima Dey Sarker)

Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem is published by Faber and Faber, priced 14.99.

In Chronic City, modern-day New York is under threat from a thick grey fog, an aerie of eagles and an escaped tiger. Its narrator, Chase Insteadman, a former child actor turned man-about-town, is engaged to a glamorous astronaut who is marooned in space and his best friend is a cannabis-smoking culture vulture who thinks the New York Times is designed to control the minds of its readers.

It is in this surreal terrain that The Fortress Of Solitude writer crafts the story of Chase and his kooky counterparts, who are involved in the city's mishaps to varying degrees. While the book is not always grippingly exciting or achingly funny, it tightropes between the two with the help of Lethem's sharp descriptions, intriguing psychology and, of course, warped imagination.

6/10 Review by Lisa Williams

The Seven Ages Of Britain by David Dimbleby is published by Hodder & Stoughton, priced 25

David Dimbleby attempts to tell Britain's story through its art and objects – from the Iron Age to the Computer Age – in his new book The Seven Ages of Britain, to tie in with a primetime BBC series of the same name.

The exquisitely illustrated book is comprised of seven chapters each depicting an era in Britain's art history – from the Middle Ages right through to 20th-century modernism – written by distinguished historians and curators.

In his introduction, Dimbleby writes about the Alfred Jewel, a gold and crystal jewel, encasing an enamel picture of a man clutching a flower in each hand, thought to have been commissioned by King Alfred to give to his bishops as a pointer for reading the Bible. The tangible object breathed life into the mythical king and rendered "the king who burnt the peasant woman's cakes" in Dimbleby's mind as real. Certain centuries are too complex to be pigeonholed as a specific "age". However, by heralding the events and artefacts of each era, Dimbleby and his collaborators demonstrate vividly how art reflects British history.

7/10 (Review Trisha Andres)

The Ticking Is The Bomb by Nick Flynn is published by Faber and Faber, priced 8.99

Poet Nick Flynn found a wider audience with his memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City detailing his time working with the homeless in Boston, including his own father who he lost touch with years earlier.

His new book again merges the public and private as Flynn awaits the birth of his daughter while recording his growing obsession with the American army's use of torture in Iraq.

No details are spared of Flynn's complicated love life, his father's continuing mental and physical decline and his own troubled upbringing, including his mother's suicide, over the book's 300 pages.

There are also excerpts from interviews with some of the Iraqis imprisoned at Abu Ghraib, but little light is shed on what really happened there or why it is so important for Flynn.

Instead, the reader is left with a series of short, sharp chapters that read like diary entries from a particularly pretentious teenager whose interest in the wider world is just an excuse for self-obsessed ramblings.

3/10 (Review by Robert Dex)