The Celtic Dagger ~ Jill Paterson

An eminent University Professor is murdered with an antique Celtic Dagger and with the Professor’s brother James Wearing being prime suspect, the race is on to clear his name. The premise is intriguing but Jill Paterson has presented us with a murder mystery which unfortunately does not deliver. 

The plot itself is workable, but each plot pointer is only briefly touched upon, leaving the reader with no sense of anticipation or drama. The third person narrator is used like a bad director and even worse ‘he’ tells the story and ‘his’ delivery would make Ed Wood proud. Any story is better told via character dialogue, which in turn develops the character; you then get into the characters head and you begin to care about them. The narrator should just gently steer you into each scene. The characters in The Celtic Dagger are one dimensional, and I also had trouble with their names which caused me to recap several times to confirm who I was reading about. 

The narration and dialogue is very stilted and I have now developed an aversion to the phrase “At that moment” along with its variation “At that same moment”. I was starting to shriek every time it was used, which was just about every other page.

There were two scenes that could have contained heightened drama: The Cliff Scene and The Stairwell Scene. But, again they are brushed over with a few lines and then the narrator switches us over to a new scene. I have read short stories that have got my heart pounding and Jill Paterson could have done so much more here to create some excitement level; the lack of it really affected my reading experience.

The love interest concerning the Inspector could have been expounded towards the end, I thought it was a nice touch, although Wearing’s imminent romance was a little corny (but I’m not much of a romantic) and as the novel is set in Australia I would have liked to have had more back story to the locations involved. The characters travel around a bit and if you are not familiar with the area it is very hard to visualise.

In summary, the ideas are there, but the author’s writing skills definitely need some work.

The Idiot ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Idiot is a Prince Myshkin who suffers from epilepsy where he has had it treated in Switzerland.  Returning to St. Petersburg he contacts a distant relative of his - a Princess Myshkin – she was my favourite character, she's very eccentric and has some of the best lines in the novel.

The princess has three daughters the youngest of whom falls in love with Myshkin, but she treats him quite strangley – leaving his feelings dangling much of the time.  Myshkin on the other hand, does love Aglaya but he wants to save Nastassya (a fallen women) and marry her instead to do her a kindness by bringing her to respectability.  But, Nastassya feels that she doesn't deserve his kindness, and wants to be with the dark and moody Rogozhin who truly loves her.  Rogozhin and Myshkin had first met on the train going to St. Petersberg at the beginning of the novel and they commence a dangerous and jealous friendship, with Nastassya being between the two of them.  No-one will win.

The theme is mainly light and dark (Myshkin and Rogozhin) – Christ & the Devil.  Myshkin is benevolent, makes friends easily and takes everything in his stride, but Rogozhin is jealous and will resort to murder. 

There are some very profound moments in the narrative.  One being the description of a man’s feelings whilst waiting to be executed – these are clearly autobiographical and chilling.  The other was a suicide note written by the consumptive Hyppolite and read by Myshkin. 

The tale was unusual, the characters strange, but you are drawn into their world by Doestoevsky’s brilliant writing.  I re-read the last few chapters several times as I did not want to say goodbye to them.

Carry Me Down ~ M J Hyland

This was a novel that I had picked up off the library shelf many times then put it back because I’d not heard of MJ Hyland.

Then I played a website game by Penguin Books and saw that one of the listed books was How the Light Gets In by MJ Hyland.  This sparked my interest.  Finally, I downloaded it on Media Overdrive and found I couldn’t put it down.

Carry me Down is an extremely compelling story.  It is narrated by a boy called John Egan who is Irish, 11 years old (going on 12) but with the body and voice of a man.  John has many issues and these are cleverly exposed throughout the storyline by showing us his lack of emotion and dis-associative behaviours.

John is very sensitive to reading the emotions of those close to him however, which leads him to recognise when they are lying to him.  He gets very angry when he spots a lie, yet through the story he himself tells many.

Convinced that he is a human lie detector he keeps a book he calls the ‘Gol of Seil’ (Log of Lies) and writes to the Guinness Book of Records requesting a chance to prove his talents.

As family life begins to disintegrate around him, John finds himself more alone than ever.  His father is unreliable and his mother has begun to distance herself from her son.  He has no-one to rely on or trust.

There are some very sinister overtones with human understones here, and you wonder ‘how will it end?’. Especially when John tries to smother his mother with a pillow in order to help her sleep!  We find out that John is to enter six months of therapy with a Psychiatrist but that’s it.  The ending was a great disappointment to an extremely vivid characterisation of a boy you won’t forget in a hurry.

The Trial ~ Franz Kafka

This is a nightmare world, where a 30 year old man, Josef K. is arrested and put on trial for a crime of which he is oblivious, his is not told what the charges are, and he has no idea who brought the charges against him.

Free to carry on with his life, but with the threat of the imminent trial, K. seeks help from a gravely ill lawyer and is given advice on the legal system by a painter known as Titorelli. 

K. is a senior bank clerk, but he finds that as he spends more time trying to get helpfor his case, his co-workers are beginning to undermine him.

Towards the end of the story he is duped into going to a cathedral where a priest who is part of the prison system has been waiting for him.  There they discuss the faceless/nameless system and the Priest tells a parable about the law, which was published on it’s own as ‘Before the Law’.

K. comes to a sad end, but as Kafka died before completing the novel who knows what the true ending would have been?

Bizarre and haunting.  I really liked it.

Thank You, Jeeves! ~ P G Wodehouse

Another delightful story where Bertie Wilberforce Wooster finds himself in a precarious situation and is in need of being bailed out by his valet Jeeves.

In this story Jeeves has actually left Bertie for employment elsewhere as he sick of Berties incessant playing of the banjolele.  This however does not prevent his expertise from being utilised – Jeeves is hired by the landlord of the cottage that Bertie has moved into after complaints about his playing from his city neighbours.    

Unfortunately if you add a drunken new Valet, a lovesick American heiress and some roaming minstrels into the mix - Berties bound to get into trouble!

This is laugh out loud stuff and I loved it.

The End of Mr Y ~ Scarlett Thomas

The End of Mr Y is a Victorian novel written by Thomas Lumas.  It contains a recipe for an elixir which transports the drinker to the “Troposphere” (or ‘mindspace’ as termed by the mysterious Project Starlight).  In the Troposhere you can jump into other people’s minds and delve into their memories and secrets.  There are, however, dangers and these come in the form of two blonde American agents from the defunct Project Starlight who want the recipe.

Ariel is a fan of Lumas’  work and finds a copy of this rare book in a second hand book store.  The page containing the recipe to the elixir has been torn out but when packing up her mentor’s office (he has disappeared) the page floats from a book that he had said to forget about when doing her thesis.  Ariel takes this as being a sign.  She makes up the elixir and travels to the Troposphere, but over time she is pursued by the two agents who will stop at nothing to obtain what they want.

I found the first half interesting and exciting but then it just started to ‘blither’ on and I began to lose interest.  Ariel’s narrative voice is that of a whinger and she swears way too  much.  I don’t like her!

The ideas throughout the novel are not all original.  ‘Mindspace’ is like ‘Cyberspace’ and the two agents are reminiscent of Mr Smith and his cronies from The Matrix.

The End of Mr Y had the potential to be a pretty good read, but it became a fizzer. 

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil ~ John Berendt

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was written by journalist John Berendt. Berendt lived in Savannah on and off and the result was this non fiction work with larger than life characters. They always say truth is stranger than fiction, and the people that you will meet within these pages are better than any fictional creation.


The Lady Chabis – is a black transvestite who doesn’t know when to keep quiet. Her banter, innuendo and back chat are hilarious.

Jim Williams - is a self made millionaire who owns the historic Mercer House and who once refused an offer to sell to Jackie O. Jim is on trial for murdering his 21 year old male lover. The trial makes history when it sits for the fourth time.

Minerva – is a voodoo witch and friend of Jim Williams. Minerva needs the help of those long death, along with a good helping of graveyard dirt to try and get Jim the Not Guilty verdict that seems so hard to obtain.

As well as the insights into the inhabitants of Savannah, we are taken on a heritage trail and given some history of the town as well.

I could not put this book down, it is a wonderful read and it’s not surprising that it spent 216 weeks on the New York Times best seller list.