Company of Liars – Karen Maitland

Company of Liars – Karen Maitland                       6/10

With the on-set of the Black Death creeping up from the South Coast, a group of misfit travellers try to out run it by heading North, whilst they each try to hide a secret from the others in this historical thriller set in 1348.

This is Maitland’s second novel, although there was a 12 year publishing gap between this and her first The White Room. I think it’s fair to say that the success of Company of Liars however, is what has propelled her into the public eye and it’s fairly easy to see why this has been successful.

By no means is it groundbreaking however. I doubt you will read this book and say you have found your new favourite author. That aside, I found it pretty enjoyable. The first half is interesting enough to capture your attention, but I think it really starts to come to life after half way through as the momentum of the plot gathers pace.

At first it is difficult to figure out how exactly it works as a thriller, but as the novel progresses Maitland gets better at increasing suspense and drama through big plot devices. The story also begins to get gorier as it goes on, which comes as something of a shock at first, particularly with the mauling of one of the characters.

Our narrator is a Camelot, a seller of relics and is your typical everyman character – likeable, fair, intelligent and worldly. The rest of the characters each have well-defined personalities that stick with them throughout the tale: Rodrigo the honest and passionate musician, Zopheil the cantankerous and bullying entertainer or Adela, the naïve yet gentle mother to be etc. Episodes are described in depth over a chapter or so and then days or sometimes weeks can go by before the tale is picked up again.

To this end it makes some of the characters appear unbelievable. Rodrigo and Osmond are portrayed as honest and tolerant, but I lost count of the times when one of them held the other back from hitting Zopheil, almost alternately, until the reader is left wondering why exactly all these characters are sticking together. This kind of repetition starts to stagnate the story. Added to this, the book is certainly too long. I think Maitland could have halved the first half; there are a number of fairly pointless episodes that don’t add to the plot – the marriage of the cripples for example.

By far the biggest flaw though sadly, is the predictability. Maitland offers far too many clues to the reader as to what the characters’ secrets are. Adela and Osmond’s is obvious almost instantly, as is Joffre’s and even Camelot’s is not hard to guess in the end.

It’s a bit of a shame, because there are some great descriptive passages. As I said earlier, Maitland builds the tension well toward the end of the novel and I also think she does a decent job of re-creating the squalor of daily life in medieval England. She doesn’t gloss over some of the things that authors usually don’t bother with; the struggle to find food from day to day is a recurrent theme for example.

Still, I liked the book and would recommend it if you like thrillers or historical novels. It's also made me likely to read other books by Maitland.

Selling Hitler – Robert Harris

Selling Hitler – Robert Harris                 9/10

A non-fiction account of how a plucky con man (Konrad Kujau) and an inept journalist (Gerd Heidemann) managed to fool some of the biggest players in the world news market into thinking they had Hitler’s personal diaries for sale in 1983.

I’m a really big fan of Robert Harris. I might even go so far as to say that he is my favourite novelist. I find his fiction books consistently gripping and, after reading some encouraging reviews of this non-fiction book, I thought I’d give it a go to see if it was as enjoyable. I’m pleased to say that I was not disappointed.

Almost 30 years after the event it is difficult to imagine such an incredible error generating as much interest today, yet you can hardly credit it being allowed to occur then. Harris paints an intricate picture that covers several levels of ineptitude at the Stern office, the German publishers that ran the ‘scoop’. 

In fact, what Harris manages to do so well here is almost turn this into a novel. He intimates early on that his source is very close to the action, we never find out who it is, but I think a fair assumption is one of the major players in the tale. The levels of accuracy are perhaps not so important though, as the finished result is less serious historical document and more salacious gossip column and that’s what makes it so exciting to read.

Harris could well be accused of character deformation, especially of Gerd Heidemann who is portrayed as falling into a progressively deeper obsession with Nazism, whilst repeatedly making incompetent decisions. His continued belief that Martin Boorman is alive and somehow directing the events, is a great example of this. To cap it off, he is accused of some serious criminal activity.

Regardless of how true to the actual events the book is, what Harris has done is create a rollicking tale that is as both fascinating as it is absurd. His treatment of the British Nazi expert, Hugh Trevor-Roper is a great political indictment and all the episodes involving Rupert Murdoch particularly stand out. The way he crafts the characters involved into caricatures of their own personalities adds to the farce, and what the reader is left with is a mixture of amusement and astonishment.

I’d certainly recommend this book to anyone. I think Harris has done a great job of livening up the whole event in both an accessible, yet intelligent way.

Northern Lights – Phillip Pullman

Northern Lights – Phillip Pullman          5/10

The first of the wildly successful His Dark Materials trilogy, Northern Lights is the tale of Lyra Belacqua and her quest to rescue her friend Roger from the frozen North, as well as discover what has happened to her uncle.

I found this book enjoyable, but probably not enough to read the next two in the trilogy. I think my pre-conception of it being a ‘children’s book’ meant that I was probably more forgiving than I would have otherwise been. Yet, I still found a number of elements of the writing frustrating.

I don’t think Pullman deals with action description very well. Perhaps his aim is to paint a confusing picture, but at times I found it too confusing. I also think that whilst his descriptions of Oxford and London are quite vivid, when the characters travel to the North the picture falters. The first part of the book moves at a good pace, but this then suddenly accelerates towards the end. It may well be that this was Pullman’s intention, to convey (If you’ll forgive a pun) the snowballing effect of events. Or it may be that he planned it badly.

Some of the dialogue I found stunted, although possibly it is supposed to be accessible for children (I think children probably fair better if you don’t patronise them, J K Rowling realised that after her first two Harry Potter books). Whilst his characterisation is generally really strong, I found the character of Lyra to be the weakest and most conflicting.

That being said I do like the way he creates a parallel Earth that he doesn’t overload you with immediately. At first the differences seem subtle, but he gradually introduces more and more of his created universe to the reader as you go through the book and I found the results quite pleasing. I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of Science Fiction per se, but I won’t immediately dismiss the genre and I think learning about Pullman’s created world was one of the more enjoyable parts of the book.

As I mentioned earlier, I like the characters. I think the rag-tag band they collect to go North add a good range of flavour to the novel. Iorek Byrnison in particular brings a brooding, dark, heroic element to the book that really drives the narrative on in the second half. I also really like the idea of each human character having an individual dæmon. Reflecting human emotions through an external being is an interesting plot device, plus it immediately leaves the reader wondering what animal they would choose if they had a dæmon – an inventive way to capture attention.

I can understand why they’re popular books, and I can also understand why they’re not quite as popular as they should be. That aside I think I would have really enjoyed this as a 12 year old.

My dæmon would be a badger.