First Thoughts
A year after the deaths of George Mallory and Sandy Irivne on Mount Everest, three adventurers attempt the summit.
Their expedition is funded by Lady Bromley, whose son, Percy, has also disappeared on the mountain. She asks the trio to find him and bring him home. As they set off from Tibet to discover the truth behind Percy’s disappearance, they are being followed by someone.
Or something.
As they get higher up Everest and the weather worsens, it becomes a matter of life and death.
But what is pursuing them, and why? And what happened to Percy?
It’s a bone-chilling tale of intrigue and mystery, and thoroughly researched, but the passages on 1920s mountaineering equipment and techniques are too long and intrusive, stalling the narrative and killing the suspense.
You Are One Of Them is the debut novel of American writer, Elliott Holt. It’s a mystery-thriller, the story of Sarah Zuckerman, a girl in Washington DC during the latter years of the Cold War, and her best friend, Jennifer Jones.
Sarah contends with tragic deaths and defections, which have marred her childhood and left her unable to let go of the past.
As an adult, she’s contacted by a mysterious source in the former Soviet Union, who promises her answers, taking Sarah on a journey to discover the truth about her best friend. The background of nuclear annihilation and paranoia, and Holt’s minute attention to historical detail, make You Are One Of Them an incredibly evocative, vivid and enjoyable read.
The intermixing of present-day Russia with 1980s America is executed well, enabling the reader to piece together Sarah’s story and become emotionally invested in the truth. It’s gripping and easy-to-read, but slightly let down by the ambiguous ending, which is disappointing after such a strong build-up.
Robert Harris is the master of the historical thriller and his latest novel finds him in fine form.
Previous books have twisted the history of Second World War codebreakers and the politics of ancient Rome into page-turning best-sellers and he has done it again, this time with The Dreyfus Affair. His story of the scandal that shook 19th century France and saw a Jewish army officer framed as a spy, is a tale of dodgy dossiers and an intelligence agency gone rogue.
He tells it through the eyes of Colonel George Picquart — one of the men who helped jail Dreyfus — and his growing doubts and realisation they got the wrong man are played out in a dark atmosphere of anarchist threats, forged evidence and blackmail.
Some of Harris’s readers will already know how this story ends, but he keeps you reading to the final page.
Fans of Eat Pray Love needn’t panic. Although the subject matter of Gilbert’s latest project initially seems wilfully obscure — the life of a 19th century female botanist — it’s soon obvious that we’re not quite so far away from her trademark woman-seeking-the-meaning-of-life-quest as we might first have believed.
Alma Whitaker is the only daughter of one of Philadelphia’s richest men, a wily and driven plant thief who encourages his daughter to read, learn and question everything.
From him she develops a passion for plants, in particular mosses. But the novel returns to more familiar territory when, aged 48, Alma falls in love with Ambrose Pike, the catalyst for a tumultuous voyage of discovery.
Gilbert’s observations, of both characters and locations, make this an unexpected joy and in Alma she has created a truly unforgettable heroine.
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