The Servants by Michael Marshall Smith.
Eleven–year–old Mark is bored. He spends his days on the Brighton sea–front, practicing on his skate–board. His mother is too ill to leave the house, and his stepfather is determined that Mark shouldn't disturb her. So when the old lady who lives in the flat downstairs introduces him to rock cakes and offers to show him a secret, he's happy to indulge her. The old lady takes a large, old–fashioned key and leads Mark down a dusty corridor to a heavy door. Beyond the door is a world completely alien to Mark's understanding. For behind the old lady's tiny apartment, the house's original servants' quarters are still entirely intact, although derelict. Mark finds himself strangely drawn to this window onto the past, and when, the next time he visits, the old lady falls asleep, he steals the key and goes to visit the servants' quarters alone. And suddenly Mark's life takes a bizarre turn, as the past seems to collide with the present, dreams invade reality and truths become apparent to this hitherto unperceiving boy.
((We here a EHB love love love Mr M M Smith. You should too. -Jordan))
One Flew into the Cuckoo's Egg: My Autobiography by Bill Oddie.
Bill Oddie is best known for the wacky humour of the Goodies, and the irrepressible enthusiasm of his nature programmes, off screen there has been a darker side. Bill has suffered from bouts of depression which have more than once taken him to the brink. Now he is back in control and wiser about the causes and the cure. Here he describes the childhood blighted by the absence of his mother who had been committed to a mental asylum when he was small. It was a lonely and difficult start to life, but there were to be happier times. Touring with the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s saw him alongside the greatest comic talents of his generation John Cleese and of course fellow Goodies Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden. Soon the Goodies were to become on of the biggest comedy hits of the 70s bringing a new brand of surreal humour to our screens. Now as Britain s favourite birdwatcher Bill has turned his private passion into his most public role and presented more than 20 nature programmes for the BBC. He has also become a fervent and outspoken campaigner for the environment. It has been an extraordinary and far from straightforward journey. Bill Oddie takes us along with him in a memoir which is as witty, candid, curious and unconventional as the man himself.
A Snowball in Hell by Christopher Brookmyre.
If society has the B-list celebrities it deserves, it now has a killer to match. Except that Simon Darcourt is a great deal more successful in his career choice than the average talent show contestant. He's also got the media taped - by the simple expedient of by-passing them completely and posting real-time coverage of his killings on the internet. He's got viewing figures to make the world's TV executives gasp in envy, and he's pulling the voyeuristic strings of every viewer by getting them to 'vote' to keep his captives alive. Angelique De Xavier, his previous nemesis, is drafted onto the police team trying to bring this one-man celebrity hate-fest to an end. But she can't do it alone, she needs the magical skills of her lover, only she doesn't know where Zal is and meanwhile a whole load of celebs are, literarly, dying to be famous. An intelligent satire, a thriller with exhilarating pace - Christopher Brookmyre at his best.
The Given Day by Dennis Lehane.
Danny Coughlin, son of Captain Thomas Coughlin, is Police Department Royalty. Danny is in charge of the predominately Italian neighbourhoods of the North End. Political dissent is in the air - fresh and intoxicating. Drawn into the ideological fray as a favour to his father, Danny is soon laying his loyalties on the other side.
Meanwhile Luther Lawrence is on the run. Suspected of a drug-related shooting in Tulsa, Luther abandons his wife and flees to Boston and begins work as a personal driver to the Coughlin household. After striking up a friendship with Danny and the family's Irish servant, Nora, he sees that the two once had a powerful bond. As the mystery of their relationship unravels, Luther resolves to return to his wife and son but his law-breaking past has followed him north and first he must settle scores with those hot on his trail.
Set at the end of the Great War in an era of unprecedented uncertainty, The Given Day is an utterly spectacular family epic. Meticulously researched and expertly plotted, it will transport readers to an unforgettable time and place.
PHEW!
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