Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Publisher: Doubleday
Pages: 480
Year: 2013
Buy: Hardback, Kindle
Source: Review copy

Review
On 11 February 1910, as the snow settles thickly, a baby is born and dies, strangled by her umbilical cord. The baby is unable to take one breath, almost aware of this waste of her own life. Instead, she falls into darkness, a bird dropping from the sky. But we turn a page and life seizes another chance, repeatedly, until finally a doctor is able to make it through the snow and free the windpipe. The baby lives and is named Ursula Todd, her mother’s little bear. So begins a series of rebirths, second, third, fourth chances, as well as repeated deaths. Some are less easy to avoid than others, more prone to recur, but Ursula determinedly, even occasionally humourously (albeit with a dark humour), tries again and again to find a way on.

Life After Life takes us through two world wars. So many people are damaged or lost. It’s as if Ursula feels driven to survive for their sake. But although Ursula does attain a level of awareness of these rebirths, the mystery of this expert and remarkable novel is how we attempt to fathom their purpose. What is it for? What is Ursula supposed to do? And if we were also conscious of more chances in life, what would we do? How far does our responsibility for others stretch?

Ursula’s lives follow a succession of journeys, even into Hitler’s inner sanctum, and the most memorable are set against a backdrop of London in the Blitz. The vividness of the prose and imagery as Ursula attempts to make sense of the horror happening around her and to her is shocking. It’s all the more powerful because we are aware that Ursula may have to repeat deaths over and over again. Our consciousness is something Ursula must learn in the hardest of ways.

In addition to Ursula herself, characters such as her parents Sylvie and Hugh stand out, as does Hugh’s sister Izzie, Ursula’s brother Teddy (another of Sylvie’s little bears), and others of the men and women that impact on Ursula’s life for good or bad, acting out vivid and memorable cameos. It’s an interesting game to look out for changes in other lives as well as slight differences in the historical backdrop. It can be like comparing two images in a puzzle book for little changes. They might be slight but they do make one wonder if it’s not just Ursula who is experiencing this deja vu made real.

Life After Life is a very clever book. Its sequence of layers, levels and clues makes for an extremely rewarding and very rich read. Its leading character Ursula is a fascinating creation. Reliving her life time after time, seeking to fix ‘mistakes’, she – as do we – questions the nature of a good life, fate, responsibility, cruelty and purpose, sometimes looking for answers in philosophy and literature. This is a book full of references to big thoughts. The fact that these lives play out against a backdrop of world wars intensifies Ursula’s determination. What is very plain, though, is that life is never easy, relationships are always difficult, someone will always get hurt, however many times you are able to live it.

The cleverness did distance me from Ursula to a degree. I found it difficult to mourn or rejoice because I could never be sure what was truth and what was fixed. But there is treasure here and the further you dig the more you’ll find and want to keep. Most deservedly, Life After Life will be one of the most talked about books of 2013.

When Nights Were Cold by Susanna Jones

Publisher: Picador
Pages: 341
Year: 2012, this Pb edn 31 January 2013
Buy: Paperback, Kindle
Source: Review copy

Review
I love a chilly tale and when better to read one than during a subzero snowdrift weekend? When Nights Were Cold makes for perfect reading as the snow falls but it’s not long before the reader finds that not all of the frost is safely outside. Reading this, some of the cold finds its way in to you as you curl up in your comfiest chair.

Susanna Jones takes us back to Dulwich in London during the earliest years of the 20th century, in which we find the home of the middle class Farringdon family. The father, once a sailor, is crippled by a horrifying sea escape that left him frostbitten and haunted by the men who drowned around him. The mother’s life, by contrast, has always been confined by domestic walls. Neither parent wants their two daughters to escape dull safety even though both girls have enormous potential – Catherine as a concert pianist and Grace, the younger, as a well-educated and independent adventurer. It’s through Grace’s eyes that we witness the tragedy of Catherine’s lost hopes and her resigned acceptance of such a terrible fate, caring for two parents who can’t loosen their grip. Grace watches as Frank, Catherine’s hopeful suitor, walks away and listens as Catherine begins to lose her musical talent. Fired up, Grace is determined to fly free, inspired by fantasies of following in the footsteps of Shackleton and Scott.

At a ladies’ college, Grace sets up a ladies’ mountaineering club with three other young women: Hooper, Parr and Locke. They escape convention – where a young woman can’t even talk to a man alone in public without stares and gossip – by climbing in Wales and the Lake District. Led on by the more experienced Parr, who has her own stories to tell, the group decides to tackle the peaks of Switzerland. But this is a dangerous place and amid the snow and the bitterly cold nights something devastating happens.

Grace is a fascinating and intriguing narrator. She is likeable, earnest and determined – all admirable qualities in these days of corsets and chaperones. But the first world war lies just around the corner, when rigid definitions of gender roles were challenged by more practical needs, and we begin to see that Grace Farringdon may not be as reliable a witness as we might have thought.

There are moments reading When Nights Were Cold when I wanted to read back through the pages; a double take. Contributing to this sense of having unsteady ground beneath the feet is the motion of the narrative, rolling forwards and backwards in time, referring to figures as yet unintroduced. The atmosphere is thick, cold and unsteady, like rough seas or mountain peaks. This is a very hard book to put down. Grace is a difficult person to abandon.

The horror of what Grace and her friends face on the mountains is almost matched by the cold harshness of life in Dulwich. There is a real sense in When Nights Were Cold of the confinement that women of this class in particular had to face. The male characters such as Frank have far more weapons at their beck and call and women, including Grace, have to suffer the consequences. Always, reading this, we are reminded of how far men can go, men such as Shackleton, Grace’s hero, in contrast to women. This constraint and control is almost enough to drive some women mad.

Winter of the World by Ken Follett

Publisher: Macmillan
Pages: 940
Year: 2012
Buy: Hardback, Kindle
Source: Bought copy

Review
Fall of Giants, published 2010, has a power that gripped me from the very first page. Beginning in the early years of the 20th century in the dark, dirty and dangerous coal mines of Wales, radiating out through a web of interconnected families to tell the story of the Red Revolution in Russia, the First World War and the Depression in the United States, it set a standard that left me craving its follow up Winter of the World while fearing that it could not live up to its predecessor. The wait was worth it and I needn’t have worried.

I think to appreciate Winter of the World fully you would need to have read Fall of Giants. In that we were introduced to a small group of families – the Peshkovs, the Von Ulrichs, the Williamses, the Dewars and the Fitzherberts – as well as a host of real historical figures – both poor and rich, powerful and oppressed, who loved, fought and hated, while managing to stamp their mark on history despite the ferocity of events that swept across Britain, Europe, the United States and Russia during the first three decades of the 20th century. We meet some of the same familiar characters in Winter of the World but now it is mostly the turn of their offspring. Not all of them are aware of the skeletons in the closets, and there are an awful lot of those, but the history they have to face is every bit as tough as that endured by their parents – even more so. Ken Follett here turns his attention to such monsters from the 1930s and 1940s as Hitler and Stalin, Fascism and Communism, covering the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, the Nuclear Weapons Race and the beginnings of the Cold War. Some of the story takes place in the pompous drawing rooms and government offices of the United States (as well as Pearl Harbor) but the focus here is on Europe through its darkest days and we watch events from both sides of the curtain.

There are set pieces here that are utterly compelling, such as the Blitz and the Russian liberation of Berlin, while there are other moments that are truly gut wrenching. There’s little here to choose between the evil of the Nazi and Stalinist oppressors. On top of that we have American gangsters, glamorous actresses, British lords and ladies and many individuals committed to a cause. Quite a few of them are prepared to put their lives at great risk in order to end tyranny. This is a strong theme that continues from Fall of Giants – despite the terrible horror there is much hope here due to the idealism that so many characters are prepared to die for. Unfortunately, too many of them have to do just that.

There are lots of characters here and as the chapters jump about from one to another and back again there is not one you will be tired of. I was grateful for the essential dramatis personae at the beginning. Some of the characters stand out – for me Carla von Ulrich, Lloyd Williams and Volodya Peskov were especially strong but it was also good to spend more time with Maud von Ulrich, Lev Peshkov and Gus Dewar from Fall of Giants. Ken Follett is a master of breathing life into his characters, you only have to have read The Pillars of the Earth to know that. His secret here is mixing great characterisation with compelling highlights, told in the most accessible but meaningful manner, from some of the most remarkable events from 20th-century history. It is a fantastic mix and Follett pulls it off perfectly.

My one and only complaint about Winter of the World is its depiction of some of the female characters, especially Daisy Peshkov, Jacky Jakes and Zoya Vorotsyntsez. These women to me were often only alive as seen through male eyes and their bodies sexualised to a degree I wasn’t comfortable with. I also found this clunky. A minor irritation.

This trilogy is a grand trilogy. Winter of the World is another long book but how I loved it and how sorry I was to finish it. This was not one of those long books that makes one feel relief when it ends. Far from it. It covers great themes and history, plus huge emotions and life itself. It could not be shorter and I loved the luxury of its length and the time I could spend lost within it. I wonder how the third book will manage, standing beside the previous two, when it has no more world wars to bring thrills to its pages but I do not doubt the ability of this master storyteller.

Dominion by C.J. Sansom

Publisher: Mantle
Pages: 450
Year: 2012
Buy: Hardback, Kindle
Source: Bought copy

Review
The year is 1952 and a fog hangs heavy, dense and toxic over Britain. In C.J. Sansom’s alternate history, Beaverbrook not Churchill became Prime Minister. Instead, Churchill is the hunted leader of the Resistance. The government is a union of Nazi sympathisers, controlling the new and unhappy Queen, welcoming the Gestapo onto the island’s shores where they make their own dark plans in the fortress that was once the University of London’s Senate House. The Second World War never happened. Instead there was a brief conflict in 1939-1940 known either as the Dunkirk Campaign or the Jews’ War. The veterans of the Great War are respected and honoured by the German and British people who are determined that no such war will occur again between the two nations – just as long as Hitler and his SS are free to continue their ‘work’ on the continent. But, as the novel begins, 12 years after the signing of the peace treaty, there are the stirrings of a more active involvement by the Nazis in British domestic and imperial affairs, especially on racial matters.

Dominion follows the story of David Fitzgerald, a young civil servant who also spies for the Resistance. When his old school friend Frank Muncaster rises to the top of the Nazi’s Most Wanted list, thanks to secrets confided in him by his brother settled in America, Fitzgerald is the natural choice to rescue Muncaster, a deeply troubled scientist who cowers in a mental hospital, and keep whatever Muncaster hides safe from the Nazis. At the same time, though, the Germans send over from Berlin one of their top officers, the fiercely intelligent and ruthless Gunther Hoth, to seek Muncaster in person.

On one level, Dominion is an adventure story, with the air of a cold war spy thriller about it, although the circumstances are far more deadly. The cat and mouse chase keeps up a pace throughout the novel. There are other threads here, though. Big themes are explored – love, friendship and courage. The relationships between brothers, between man and wife, between lovers, between colleagues, between a government and its subjects distract the characters and readers alike as each questions the limits to which one would go to do the right thing. Not just for one’s fellow countrymen, including Jews and the mentally ill or physically disabled, but also for one’s wife or husband. On the other hand, though, how far would others go to further a career? Even Hoth has his thought processes revealed. And all is concealed and obscured by this horrendous fog.

Sansom is best known, of course, for his famous Tudor investigator Shardlake, although he has explored more recent history before in Winter of Madrid. One can see the similarities between the Tudor and alternate history presented in Dominion. In the post-Dissolution years, England was most probably a frightened and confused place, with centuries of belief smashed around its people. I can see why a fascist Britain would interest Sansom.

Anyone who’s read the Shardlake novels, especially, in my opinion, the first two, knows how well Sansom writes. He achieves an air of authority while still exploring the weaknesses (and strengths) of men and women living in troubled times. Sansom achieves something of the same in Dominion. Arguably, though, this air of authority does have its disadvantages here. In the first couple of hundred pages in particular there is a lot of Info Dumping, so much so that I was irritated on occasion. Admittedly, I did have flu at the time and this may have been a contributing factor. But this and some of the dubious political world building is offset by the brilliance of Dominion‘s atmosphere. Looking back on it, I remember the the fog, the anger, the chill and the rumours. Knowing as we do what went on in Nazi Germany – some of which the protagonists can only suspect – adds a real sense of urgency to the story.

There is a coldness in Dominion, which isn’t surprising considering some of the people in it and its mood of secrets, but I must mention Frank Muncaster, a character I warmed to deeply.

I won’t be the first to mention it but comparisons with Robert Harris’ alternate history Fatherland are inevitable and should there be a contest between the two I’m not sure that Dominion would be the victor. Intriguingly, though, Sansom does not take the easy course here with his new history – George VI stays on the throne and there is no German invasion. This adds a much more interesting dimension to the motives and positions of the key characters.

All in all, Dominion is a very good alternate history of an extremely unpleasant Britain. A sinister and oppressive atmosphere hangs over this tale of domination and resistance and it’s that you’ll remember it for.

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton

Publisher: Mantle
Pages: 600
Year: 2012, Pb 2013
Buy: Hardback, Kindle, Paperback
Source: Bought copy

Review
Kate Morton is not a novelist that I have read before. However, having been seduced by reviews of her latest, The Secret Keeper, I settled down to enjoy a long and involving story that follows a family mystery backwards and forwards through almost a century of British history. It has a sit up with a shock opening – in 1961 teenager Laurel witnesses a man approach her mother at the gate to their house. She watches as her mother sets down on the ground the baby boy she is carrying, grasping hold of the knife she is about to cut his birthday cake with, and rips it into the chest of the man, killing him. Fifty years later, with her mother now close to death, Oscar-winning actress Laurel is driven by a compulsion to discover the truth behind this act. Why did the man, dismissed by police as a criminal, greet her mother with her name?

The greater part of The Secret Keeper moves between 2011, the year of Laurel’s quest, and 1941, a critical year in the life of her mother, Dorothy. The pages take us back to London during the height of the Blitz when young women such as Dorothy have to make a living in a city that is being ripped apart by night, whole streets and boroughs wiped out by continual bombing. This state of affairs, though, does mean that the rigid class system of the pre-war years is itself taking some blows, allowing Dorothy some freedom to follow her dreams, even as the bombs fall around her. We follow her life in the city, her friends and boyfriend, and meet the people that will dictate the future course of her life, including Vivien who, like Dorothy, has trauma in her life.

In the present day, Laurel, her sisters and brother slowly start to come to terms with the loss of their wonderful and exciting mother, uncovering little clues to the life they wish to hang on to in the secret places of Dorothy’s house. It is clear that for Laurel, and for her brother, their own lives must wait until they can come to terms with what has happened. It would appear to Laurel that her mother is likewise waiting for the peace that this knowledge would bring.

The Secret Keeper gave me a fair amount of angst during the course of the week in which I read it. The writing is beautiful, the characters are elegantly allowed to grow and breathe and the settings (1941 and the Blitz, 1961, 2011 and flashbacks into earlier days) are vividly located. For the first couple of hundred pages I was gripped by it and mesmerised by the atmosphere.

All well and good, but at about halfway through I found the characters increasingly frustrating (and irritating). The exception was Laurel and I would turn the pages longing for a return to the present day and Laurel’s hunt. The issue that had the most dramatic impact on my enjoyment of the novel, though, was that quite early on I had worked out all of the mysteries. From that point on I also found the storyline increasingly frustrating. I was disappointed by the predictability and the slow, slow circle-creeping narrative. Rarely have I urged a book to ‘get on with it!’ quite as much. Beautiful prose it might be but when you have guessed how the story will unfold it does lose its shine. It’s a little thing but I also thought that the ages of Laurel and her sisters were not easy to believe. Bearing in mind that they were all in their 60s and 70s, I found the depiction of sister Daphne as the glamorous TV weather reader eyebrow raising to say the least.

As a result, my appreciation of the novel’s good points – and there are plenty – were unfortunately outweighed by relief at reaching its finish. But it’s worth mentioning that I had to finish it. The Secret Keeper is an addictive read and I can see why so many readers love it even if it failed with me.

The Map of Lost Memories by Kim Fay

Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
Pages: 336
Year: 2012
Buy: Paperback, Kindle
Source: Review copy and bought copy

Review
Not all is as it seems. The Map of Lost Memories is not your typical adventure story. It may feature the search for lost copper scrolls deep in the jungle of Cambodia and it may be steeped in the mysteries of a lost history but all of this serves as the grand and evocative backdrop for the tale of two young women back in the 1920s who are searching for the clues to an even greater puzzle – their own heritage and their purpose in this difficult and masculine environment.

The story begins in Shanghai in 1925. It focuses on Irene, a museum curator who has been cheated from what is her due because of her sex. She seeks vengeance in the form of making a great archaeological discovery that no-one can steal from her. When her elderly patron Mr Simms reveals that her recently deceased father has left him (not her) clues to a lost temple and its scrolls, she sets off on what becomes a trail of breadcrumbs. She is advised to seek out the well know Khmer linguist and archaeologist – or treasure hunter – Simone, a young Frenchwoman who was born in the east and has married a man that many believe will be the instigator of a socialist rebellion that will finally rid Cambodia of its western overlords. Charismatic leader he might be, but he is also a brute of a man and a monster of a husband. Simone is no longer the woman she may once have been.

The Map of Lost Memories follows Irene and Simone, and the men who love them, on a slow and winding trail through the hot, wet and insect-ridden jungle, pausing for tantalising glimpses of hidden villages, meandering cool rivers and Angkor Wat. The dangers come from local chiefs or officials who want to safeguard their resources as well as threats closer to home, some exaggerated by opium and alcohol and self-loathing.

The mystery of the scrolls might steer the course of the novel but The Map of Lost Memories investigates many large themes – the place of women in a man’s world, the future of the people of Cambodia, drug addiction, the theft of antiquities and the relationships between parents and children, husbands and wives, between lovers.

If you were after a pageturning quest thriller, I doubt you’d be entirely satisfied. The pace is leisurely and the novel is very much about the journey rather than the destination. There are many little details about the history and environment of China and Cambodia and there is in depth scrutiny of Irene’s aspirations and needs. Set against that is Simone, a deeply damaged and unsympathetic individual. There are elements of melodrama – we are put in a famously enigmatic and romantic place and time after all – but often the mood is quiet and complex.

Irene and Simone are memorable characters, as is the jungle itself. It is vividly brought into colour for us. The women are the force behind The Map of Lost Memories and if there is any criticism it would be that the men are less well-rounded and real. I would also suggest that the novel is a little too burdened with over description. An upside of this is an enormously detailed picture of the jungle and other places, but the downside is the potential to stall the story and slow the read. Nevertheless, this is a fine novel, a literary adventure, that lingers in the mind, thanks to the wonderful portraits of Irene and Simone, and the atmosphere that seeps through the novel, evoking so strongly another place and time. If you can’t appreciate the passion and courage of Irene or feel the heat and damp of that jungle, so beautifully described by Kim Fay, I’ll be very surprised.

HHhH by Laurent Binet

Publisher: Harvill Secker
Pages: 336
Year: 2012 (Pb 3 January 2013)
Buy: Hardback, Kindle, Paperback
Source: Bought copy

Review
HHhH is the English translation (by Sam Taylor) of a novel named after the phrase ‘Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich’. In it, we are given insight into the life, thoughts and actions of Reinhard Heydrich, set against the story’s main event – the assassination of this Blond Beast, Butcher of Prague, the Hangman by one Czech and one Slovakian. Two ideologies united by a hatred of this evil executor of the Final Solution.

That is one side of the novel. The other is that of the path of the historical novelist. Rather than give us a straightforward, chronological and fictional, albeit accurate, account of Heydrich’s life, in tandem with that of his assassins, Laurent Binet instead presents HHhH as an exercise in historical fiction. We can never overlook the input of the author, his intentions, his method, his purpose and even his failings. Throughout, Binet interjects to explain the reasons for his inclusion of a fact or opinion, his doubts over a verbal exchange between characters and his own very personal reasons for caring so much for Czechoslovakia.

In mostly very brief and to the point chapters, Binet takes us through Heydrich’s cold, violent rise to power, his dealings with Hitler and Himmler and his eradication of all opposition, whether on political or religious grounds. A guest at a dinner party could well find himself face under foot in a cell within a matter of days. Alongside it all are little asides from our author, asking if it is reasonable to put words into the mouths of historically real characters.

But while Binet’s unusual and fascinating narrative repeatedly makes the reader question the technique and aim of the historical fiction novelist, the horrific reality of Heydrich, the abysmal truth of his actions, holds up the value of such an exercise. This might be fiction, it might be coloured by the prejudices of its author, but these events did happen and, like it or not, the job of the novelist includes the remit to make such men live forever on the page.

There is a problem with this approach, however, but this is very much the problem of the reader (or, more particularly, this reader) and not the novelist. While I could appreciate and admire the intellectual games behind this very conscious presentation of history, it’s hard to spend hours in the company of Heydrich. For me it was too relentless and grim but, if you’re able to work through that, I think you will find this a fascinating exercise in the storytelling of history.

The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman

Publisher: Doubleday
Pages: 368
Year: 2012, Pb 2013
Buy: Hardback, Kindle, Paperback
Source: Review copy

Review
I have a real weakness for novels set on or by the sea and so I was always going to want to read ML Stedman’s debut novel The Light Between Oceans but, as I immersed myself in its mood and atmosphere, it touched much more of a nerve than that. This is a novel that will keep you awake at night, both reading and savouring it and then thinking about it once it’s done.

Tom Sherbourne is a lighthouse keeper on tiny Janus Island, off the Australian coast. It is the 1920s and, as a single man, Tom is content to maintain the light in isolation for months on end, with months between deliveries of provisions, and work through his demons left to him by the trenches of the First World War. But then, while on leave, he falls in love with the vibrant Isabel. They marry and she returns to Janus and they live a happy life together on their little island, marred by one sadness: their inability to have a baby that lives. Then, one day, a boat drifts onto the island containing a dead man and a small living baby. On this isolated rock, and with Isabel as vulnerable as she is after losing another child, it doesn’t take much for matters to get out of hand. A decision is made, with excuses at first and finally with denial, and Lucy is taken into the hearts of Isabel and Tom.

This is a time when nothing in families is simple. Everyone seems to have lost someone thanks to the war. Isabel’s brothers were both killed within days of each other and so Lucy doesn’t just fill a hole in Isabel’s life but also in those of grandparents. The joy that Lucy brings is matched, of course, by guilt – deep, aggravating constant guilt. As time goes on, it becomes harder to ignore the suffering and loss that Lucy’s real mother must be enduring, compounded as this is by the mystery of the dead man in the boat. Reading The Light Between Oceans, you just know that this cannot end well for everyone or indeed for anyone. Not everything can stay on the island.

The Light Between Oceans is brilliantly written, evoking perfectly life on the island and on the almost equally remote mainland. This is a small community and relationships are complex. The joy and pain that Lucy brings in equal measure is quite heartbreaking to read and, as the novel progresses and consequences take shape, with ramifications for so many people, it defies you to stay dry-eyed. However, this isn’t a depressing novel, it’s written too beautifully and its landscapes and people are too striking. Tom is our observer and through him we witness so many changes in Isabel as well as the growing child. But as we watch his family, it becomes evermore difficult to ignore Tom’s increasing distance from it.

The Light Between Oceans is an extraordinary debut that more than rewards the emotion that you’ll invest in it.

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan

Publisher: Virago
Pages: 288
Year: 2012 (Pb, 3 January 2013)
Buy: Hardback, Kindle, Paperback
Source: Review copy

Review
As we approach the centenary of the tragedy of the Titanic’s sinking, there is something rather pertinent and moving about Charlotte Rogan’s The Lifeboat – a novel which presents the story of a group of mostly women and some men who are shipwrecked in a small vessel in 1914 and are adrift. Despite the prayers of a clergyman on board, it is clear that this lifeboat sails out of sight of God. In particular, the novel focuses on the young Grace Winter who, married just ten weeks before the telling of the novel takes place, has been a widow for six. As the novel begins, Grace and her fellow survivors Mrs Grant and Hannah are on trial for their lives, accused of a murder.

The story is told to us here by Grace herself and she is no ordinary witness. She is also a major contributing factor to the success of The Lifeboat as a novel and as a mystery. Grace may be our eyes for the events in the lifeboat but she is also a woman with a vehement desire to survive and while we empathise and feel for her as she recounts those long days lost and barely alive in the boat, we’re fully aware that Grace may be off the boat but her life is still in danger. Her words are intended to save it.

The narrative moves between the days and nights on the lifeboat, events before the disaster that led to it and the aftermath of their rescue. We hear about Grace’s marriage to the wealthy young heir Henry, her deliverance to the lifeboat even though it was full, her devotion for Mr Hardie, the crewman on board the lifeboat who takes charge of their survival, the women who mourn their lost husbands and children and cling on to sanity while sipping saltwater and chewing dried seagull flesh. Then there are the outnumbered men.

There are several reasons to savour The Lifeboat, not least the voice of Grace. Our ambivalence towards her is tempered by our sympathy for her extraordinary and desperate circumstances. Through her we experience other strong survivors, especially Mrs Grant and Hannah, as well as the suffering of some of the weaker individuals in the lifeboat, not all of whom survive. Then there is the sea itself. Matched by a stunning cover, The Lifeboat gives us the sea as a character in itself, populated by scarce fish and seabirds plus its ill, damaged and increasingly insane human victims.

Despite the confines of the boat, The Lifeboat is never dull and despite its tragic subject, it is not without humour. The suffering is accompanied by multiplying Chinese whispers about thefts onboard the liner, rumours about what survivors may be concealing, the reason for Grace’s appearance on the overfull boat and the terrible sight of the abandoned, drowning men and women in the cold seas. Grace is indeed a born survivor and listening to her tell her story, you hang on to every word. It is at times a harrowing tale indeed.

The Lifeboat is Charlotte Rogan’s debut novel. It is also one of Waterstones 11 along with the superb The Snow Child. It is most certainly worth your attention. I’m going to remember it for quite a while.

Dead Men by Richard Pierce

Publisher: Duckworth
Pages: 284
Year: 2012 (15 March)
Buy: Paperback
Source: Review copy

Review
One hundred years ago, Robert Falcon Scott and four other men left the other members of the Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica and set out to claim the South Pole. When they arrived there on 19 January 1912, they discovered that the Norwegian explorer Roald Admundsen had beaten them to it by a mere matter of days. Neither Scott, Wilson, Bowers, Oates or Evans survived the arduous trek back to their comrades.

A century later in London, a young artist Birdie Bowers, named by her parents in honour of their famous and tragic relative Henry ‘Birdie’ Bowers, is obsessed with finding the tent in which the frozen remains of Scott, Bowers and Wilson were discovered and buried a short time after their deaths. The tent was located just eleven miles from a food depot. Birdie believes that the answer to the mystery of why Scott couldn’t reach this safety lies buried in the ice with him. His diary and those of the other men had been rescued but they didn’t provide the answers Birdie seeks, just tantalising glimpses of five men descending into their fate.

Adam Caird is the man who has fallen in love with Birdie, a woman he has taken upon himself to rescue and love and so escort to the other side of the world. Neither of them were looking for love and both find it difficult to speak its language but, as they prepare for their expedition to the South Pole, they learn as much about each other as they do about the men they are trying to find. When they finally reach Antarctica and face true isolation and real danger, they realise how impossible it would be to survive without the other.

For life, love, fear and death are the themes of Dead Men. Removed from society and civilisation, in the white out of a snow storm and with the threat of six months of frigid darkness, Scott and his men, as well as Birdie and Adam, have to face something quite primeval about their existence and place in the world.

Dead Men contains several voices. In large part, we have the present tense first person narrative of Adam, revealing to us his feelings for the younger and extraordinary Birdie as well as his increasing fascination for Scott and his men. The only distraction for me were Adam’s frequent tears. In addition to his story we have pieces from the past, told in third person, as we observe the discoverers of the remains of Scott, the other men of the Terra Nova expedition waiting for rescue from the ice, Roald Admunson, Scott’s wife and so on. This variety of perspectives, times and continents provides a rich depth for the mystery.

There is also another presence at work here and it’s the one that exerts the pull on the lives and fate of the men who explore this ice wasteland as well as those of the people left behind or follow in their footsteps.

Dead Men grips in more ways than one. It is a historical puzzle but it is also a polar adventure, a love story, a horror story and a ghostly tale. It challenges the conventions of what one can expect from a historical mystery – Dead Men is not an action thriller nor is it a conventional romance. It is, however, poetically told and I was as moved by it as, at times, I was frightened. It’s a gentle, relatively short and well-written tale focusing on characters past and present with whom we quickly become involved. We many not know much about the previous life of our narrator, Adam, or too many details about the men from the past such as Cherry but the quality of the prose means we know all we need to with a skilful brevity.

Dead Men is a debut novel by Richard Pierce and it is an excellent one. His meticulous research into the story of Scott’s last expedition shines through, as does the dangerous, cold splendour of Antarctica and the adventurous spirit of the men who strove to conquer her.