Books : Fiction : Contemporary Fiction: 1970 Onwards : Authors A-Z : M

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Seven Troop

Andy McNab
Brute Force

Andy McNab
The Road

Cormac McCarthy
Batman: The Killing Joke (Deluxe Edition)

Alan Moore
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Haruki Murakami
A Darker Domain

Val McDermid

1984. The National miners' strike is dividing the country, and in a struggling coal-mining town, the miners and their families are living at the edge of their resources. They have no money, and there is no food or heating. On the 14th of December, five miners break ranks to travel to Nottingham and work. For those who stay behind, this is an unforgivable betrayal, and the men are branded as scabs. 23 years later, a young woman is asking the police to trace her missing father: miner Mick Prentice vanished, never to be seen again, although money has been sent to his family; he was widely considered to be one of the scabs. Soon, D I Karen Pirie and DS Phil Parharta find themselves investigating a forgotten disappearance.

This is the provocative premise of Val McDermid's latest novel, A Darker Domain, and this utterly compelling book is further proof that McDermid is determined to stretch the parameters of what crime fiction is supposedly capable of. McDermid has always been prepared to freight serious issues into her work, and this novel -- which, in many ways, is an examination of the conditions that produced the Britain we live in today -- demonstrates the continuing high level of her ambition.

In fact, Karen Pirie, when taking on this new assignment, is already involved in a case of kidnapping that took place 22 years earlier (in which a woman was killed during a bungled handover of money). Journalist Bel Richmond makes a startling discovery concerning the MacLennan kidnapping while on holiday in Tuscany, and as the three protagonists dig deeper into ever-more labyrinthine mysteries, they are to make some remarkable discoveries -- discoveries which throw light not just on the crimes involved, but on the whole of British society.
As all of this might suggest, the stakes here are as high as one is likely to find in a crime novel, and Val McDermid demonstrates that she is as capable as ever of integrating the demands of the page-turning crime narrative with a discussion of the things that make society tick. McDermid fans who may be lamenting the fact that this is not another novel featuring Dr Tony Hill will quickly change their minds as A Darker Domain exerts its cobra-like grip. --Barry Forshaw
On Chesil Beach

Ian McEwan
A Mercy

Toni Morrison
Beneath the Bleeding

Val McDermid

It seems hard to believe now, but there was a day when Val McDermid was just another crime writer. True, her Kate Brannigan novels were highly accomplished and well-honed pieces of work, and if McDermid had written nothing else, they would have assured her a solid place in the history of the genre. But Beneath the Bleeding (as with most of the other work the author has done more recently) is a much more ambitious and considerable novel, written on a grander scale, tackling pertinent social issues and (most importantly) developing two highly memorable characters: forensic profiler Tony Hill and his police ally DCI Carol Jordan.
The new book, as disturbing as it is compulsively readable, continues to add new levels to the psychological thriller -- something that McDermid seems able to do in every new book. A star footballer has been murdered in the city of Bradfield. Shortly after, an explosion rocks the town's football stadium, wreaking mass carnage. In the current climate of fear regarding home-grown terrorism, it is inevitable that suspicion falls in this direction - but is money -- or something else -- involved here? Such as a bloody working out of some kind of revenge scenario against the football team? Needless to say, this is quite a different case from those that Tony Hill and Carol Jordan have previously been involved with, and the customary relationship (swinging between confrontation and admiration) is worked out with all the rigour that we expect from McDermid. Of course, this is an author who always has more fish to fry than the simple exigencies of the crime novel, and astringent commentaries on many aspects of British society are provocatively incorporated here (always, though, inter alia -- never at the expense of a forward-moving narrative). If you're a fan of the Wire in the Blood TV series, you should do yourself a favour and investigate the original novels - such as Beneath the Bleeding. They offer a considerably more involving experience. --Barry Forshaw
Blood Meridian: Or, the Evening Redness in the West (Picador Books)

Cormac McCarthy
Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murakami

"I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me" "Norwegian Wood" (Lennon/McCartney).
With Norwegian Wood Murakami, best known as the author of off-kilter classics such as the Wind Up Bird Chronicle, A Wild Sheep Chase and Hard Boiled Wonderland, finally achieved widespread acclaim in his native Japan. The novel sold upwards of 4 million copies and forced the author to retreat to Europe, fearful of the expectations accompanying his new-found cult status.
The novel is atypical for Murakami: seemingly autobiographical, in the tradition of many Japanese "I" novels, Norwegian Wood is a simple coming of age tale set, primarily, in 1969/70, the time of Murakami's own university years. The political upheavals and student strikes of the period form the backdrop of the novel but the focus here is the young Watanabe's love affairs and the pain (and pleasure) of growing up with all its attendant losses, (self-)obsessions and crises.
The novel is split into two volumes and beautifully presented here in a "gold" box containing both the green book and the red book. Young Japanese fans became so obsessed with the work that they would dress entirely in one or other colour denoting which volume they most identified with. And the novel is hugely affecting, reading like a cross between Plath's Bell Jar and Vizinczey's In Praise of Older Women, if less complex and ultimately less satisfying than Murakami's other, more allegorical, work. He captures the huge expectation of youth, and of this particular time in history, for the future and for the place of love in it. He also saturates the work with sadness, an emotion that can cripple a novel but which here underscores the poignancy of the work's rather thin subject matter. --Mark Thwaite
An Offer You Can't Refuse

Jill Mansell
Crossfire

Andy McNab
No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy
After Dark

Haruki Murakami
The Mermaids Singing

Val McDermid
The Wire in the Blood

Val McDermid
A Place of Execution

Val McDermid
Bravo Two-Zero

Andy McNab
Atonement

Ian McEwan