Juxtabook

The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

You will either love or hate The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley. I love it. It is the second of three volumes (to date) featuring the precocious eleven year sleuth Flavia de Luce. It is set in a quintessential 1950s village skillfully constructed by the Canadian author with all the Golden Age crime fan could desire in the way of churches, vicars, village greens and tea shops.

Flavia lives in rambling country house with her bullying elder sisters Feely and Daffy, and her eccentric, stamp collecting father. Her mother is dead. She is a lonely child, witty and insightful, and mad about chemistry. With her trusty bike she roams the village and its surrounding countryside getting into scrapes and finding out more about her neighbours than anyone bargains for, be it her family or the local police. The house is a post-war shambles; it is the sort of building so large and ill maintained that an entire chemistry lab can be forgotten about in one disused wing.

Whilst an excellent piece of crime fiction in its own right it is also a wonderful pastiche. It evokes all that was good in the Golden Age crime novel but the distance in time lends it an ironic air. I notice that a review from The Guardian describes as a cross between Dodie Smith's I Capture The Castle and The Adams family. there is some truth in that, but it reminded me more of cross between the gothic excesses of Patrick Hamilton's Gaslight with early lives of the Mitford sisters (I can see Decca as Flavia) and Enid Blyton's Find-Outers: Fatty has his disguises where Flavia has her chemistry lab.

At the start of The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag Flavia, on one of her excursions, meets a travelling puppet theatre company. Rupert star of the BBC, and Nialla, the latest in a string of pretty assistants, run the little show. Sharper than her years, Flavia guesses all is not well in their relationship and when their performance at the church hall ends in murder, Flavia is determined to revisit the death of a small boy some years earlier in her search for the truth.

Leavening it above the average historical crime novel are is its humour and its adroit handling of minor characters. Along side the crime the book is very funny. The story of the English literature loving WWII German airmen being shot down outside Haworth was a highlight that I was compelled to read aloud to anyone who could be persuaded to listen. But it is also poignant, and in its handling of handyman Dogger and his post-war trauma is really quite delicate.

The village of Bishop Lacey is wonderfully imagined and ticks all the cosy boxes, but like the potentially annoying Flavia, who at one stage attempts to poison her own sister, all is not sweetness and light. This is a murder story for grown-ups and any sweetness has a very dark centre. The tea room does after all have an interconnecting door with the undertakers. If you don't like Flavia you won't like the book, but I loved Flavia and I found Bradley's very twenty-first century resurrection of the world of Allingham and Christie simply addictive.

David Mitchell

There's an incisive article on stammering by novelist David Mitchell in Prospect magazine. You do not need to join anything/ pay anything to read it. I loved Mitchell's Black Swan Green with its troubled stammering adolescent who was, as Mitchell described his teenage self, a "zit-spattered thesaurus of synonyms" in order to replace those difficult words on the go. Whether you enjoyed Black Swan Green or not Mitchel's piece in Prospect is an elegant analysis of The King's Speech and its handling of stammering.

Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist

It has been a long time since I have read anything like Harbour by John Ajvide Lindqvist and certainly would not have picked a copy of this up in a bookshop based on the cover. The fact that I have enjoyed Let the Right One in would not have been enough. This nonchalance on my part would have been a mistake. Harbour is a wonderful book and I am very glad Quercus sent me a copy.

The start of the novel is traumatic. Anders, his wife, and their daughter Maja are out for a snowy walk round the Swedish archipelago where Anders grew up. One minute their daughter is there and the next she has gone. No trace of her is ever found. This part is over quickly and is played very simply by the author with no wallowing, thoughof course her absence is an integral part of the novel. Two years pass and in the wake of the tragedy Anders and his wife have separated as a result of his inability to handle Maja's loss and his consequent descent in alchoholism. Anders then returns to the island to his old home, and to his grandmother and step-grandfather, Anna-Greta and Simon. He gradually becomes aware that messages about Maja appear to be left around and that he is starting to think like her.

There's the big bed, that's where Mummy and Daddy sleep, I can go over there if I'm scared. This is my beautiful bed, there's bamse. I am six years old. My name is Maja. I know that I am loved.

In his fragile mental state what can this mean?

The geography is everything in this novel. Ice, wind and water form the crux of the book and in this sense it is a "white gothic" novel like Blackmoor. Any horror is understated and largely psychological, and what physical manifestations arise are watery ones; there's danger but no blood and gore, so the squeamish reader is fairly safe. This is not to say this it is not a novel that lacks psychological thrills. I was on the edge of my seat with Harbour as much as I was absorbed in the engaging characters, and the characters are good. Harbour is worth reading for the magical Simon and Anna-Greta alone.

It was as if [Anna-Greta] lived only on clear, salty air, and when the day came for her to pass away she would probably do exactly that. Just take a step to one side. Dissolve into a north-westerly wind as it whirled around the lighthouse at North Point, then out across the sea.

There is much here too for the child of the '80s. Lyrics by Morrissey permeate the book and form part of a vital scene between Anders and a sort of watery ghost from his past. Lovers of the music of The Smiths will find much to enjoy.

For a book that kicks off with a child disappearing and alcoholism it is surprisingly uplifting. The ending is very satisfying and the journey to get there is often magical and theatrical. It is hard not to think of the The Snow Queen and Kay and Gerda, and also Anna-Greta and Simon both in different ways resemble a kind of Gandalf or Aslan or Dumbledore without the associated deification. Which is not to say it is a child's book, emphatically no, but it has a sense of enchantment that one rarely gets with adult fiction, even in Stephen King whose writing is the closest I can think of here. If reading gothic fiction or even horror is not something you usually do, don't be put off, this character-lead thriller might take you out of your comfort zone but you may well feel the trip was well worth while.

The paperback edition of Harbour is due out in May.