This week: a book of ghosts
This week it’s three crime novels, one biographical novel, a romcom and a book of ghosts…
Le Petit: A Life Remembered, Maureen Petson, Olympia €11
Part bio and part novel, this is the story of the author’s ancestors in the 1860s, prompted by her curiosity about her surname. Her antecedents on her father’s side were French, but their surname, le Petit, was difficult to pronounce in the slums of Victorian Dublin, and it morphed gradually into Petson. The author was shocked to discover how hard life was for those who came before her, families cramped into freezing, dark tenement rooms, working long hours for virtually nothing and one man, William le Petit, having spent time in reform school. It’s like an episode of TV’s ‘Who do you think you are?’ in book format, and Petson is to be commended on the vast amount of research it took to finally put this story together.
Morbidly Yours, Ivy Fairbanks, Penguin, €13.99
American Lark Thompson is 30-something, recently widowed and has taken a job in far-flung Ireland to escape the grief that has engulfed her at home in the States. She’s staying in digs in Galway and not long there when a consignment of body bags lands on her doorstep, delivered in error and meant for her next door neighbour, the owner of a funeral home. Lark doesn’t know it’s a funeral home, doesn’t know he’s an undertaker and it’s great fun watching her find out. And although this reader isn’t the world’s greatest romcom fan (usually too much rom and very little com), I found this book really funny. Lark is a bit all-American but other than that there’s depth in the characters here, there’s grief, there’s quite a bit of detail about the cadavers that Callum the undertaker preps for their final farewell too. And there’s Callum’s frustration at not being able to find a wife. Because remaining single will cost him the business, left to him by his grandfather but with stringent stipulations about marrying. Lark charges herself with the mission of finding a wife for her ageing boy next door and the whole thing fizzes with comedy. Definitely a standout in its genre.
Death at the Sanatorium, Ragnar Jonasson, Michael Joseph, €18
Translated from the original Icelandic by Victoria Cribb, this is Jonasson’s latest piece of Scandi Noir. This story focuses on a murder case more than two decades old and is Jonasson’s affectionate nod to the woman who got him writing crime novels in the first place, Agatha Christie. Helgi is a post-grad criminologist who’s been working on his PhD in the UK and later returns to work for Reykjavik CID. He’s having trouble dealing with his extremely violent girlfriend and wondering what to do, and he’s relying on work to keep him sane. He’s researching a cold case when, in 1983, a nurse in a hospital that was previously a TB sanatorium, was murdered. Soon afterwards the chief suspect, a doctor at the same hospital, was also murdered. The case has never been cracked and Helgi is determined to do so. But the surviving members of staff from the sanatorium refuse to talk. And then there’s still the mad girlfriend to deal with. First-rate crime fiction, dark as an Icelandic night.
Blood Like Mine, Stuart Neville, Simon and Schuster, €16.99
It seems everywhere along the Midwest states where Rebecca Carter travels with her daughter Moonflower, a trail of corpses is left in their wake. All men, all with their throats sliced open and all of them found far from where they were killed. Rebecca stays on the move in her van with blacked-out windows and false number plates, young daughter in tow. They never hang around one place for long and Rebecca has her eyes constantly on her rear-view mirror. FBI man Mark Donner has been investigating, with precious little evidence and few witnesses. But he’s determined. And as the story progresses in typical Neville form, full of twists and turns, the reader realises that predator and prey are not as clearly marked out as they might have first appeared. Another winner from this highly successful author from County Armagh.
Tangled Web, Florence Gillan, Poolbeg, €16.99
Eimear Martin has suffered the sudden loss of her mother in a car accident and the ending of her engagement to Dónal. The latter is no loss, he’s a coercive controller and a bad egg, but she’s still reeling. The time is right to move from her native Sligo and make a fresh start in Dublin. She’s not long up in the big smoke when odd things begin to happen. She receives a threatening letter in the post. One of her windows is smashed. But she thinks things will somehow settle down and refuses to be intimidated by, she presumes, Dónal. But things are more complicated than that, as Eimear is to discover. She at first relies on her aunt and a newly-made friend but soon she doesn’t know who – if anyone – is trustworthy, as old secrets and new lies abound. With a denouement you really can’t see coming, this is Gillan’s best yet.
Haunted Ireland: An Atlas of Ghost Stories from Every County, Kieran Fanning, Gill, €24.95
Navan schoolteacher and children’s author Kieran Fanning has traversed the 32 counties to write this piece of spooky loveliness for kids from age eight upwards, with dark and moody illustrations from Mark Hill. This isn’t just well-timed for Halloween, it’s an ideal present for the entire season of long, dark nights that’s almost here. Ghosts just don’t seem to have the same effect on long, sunshiny summer evenings, do they? It’s a stylish production, the kind of book an eager young reader would keep, taking it with them for their adult bookshelves. It’s a book to pass on. And there’s lots for the adults to dip into as well. A sumptuous spine-tingler for kids, who always love a decent ghost story.
Footnotes
Kildare Readers Festival runs from Thursday 10 October to Sunday 13th and they have a truly stellar lineup. Info and links for tickets at kildarecoco.ie. Yvonne Heavey’s book The Wake of Yer Man is available from Just Books bookshop in Mullingar from October 9.