2016 books, #71-75

A rare interest in corpses, by Ann Granger [audiobook]. Read by Maggie Mash and Glen McCready. Rearsby, Leics.: WF Howes, 2006.

In 1864, Lizzie Martin comes to London from Derbyshire, as companion to her godfather's widow.  On the way to her employer's house, she sees a body being taken out of a house which is being demolished to make way for the new St Pancras Station.  As time goes on, she discovers that the household and the house at St Pancras have a connection, possibly a dangerous one; and that she's already acquainted with the police inspector charged with the investigation.  This is tightly-plotted, and I love the details on the building of St Pancras as someone who sees it every day.  The dual reading is a nice format, given the two narrators, and there's some real humour here.

Roughing it in the bush, by Susannah Moodie. Kindle edition.

Susannah Moodie and her husband emigrated to Canada in 1832, with their small baby in tow; this is the story of the first few years of their life in the new territory.  Susannah is at time exasperating - she has the sententious Christianity of her age - and the poetry at the beginning and end of each chapter did absolutely nothing for me; but it's a fascinating account, occasionally very humorous.  It has the attitudes, and language, of its age, but is often very refreshingly not what you'd expect from a Victorian matron.  And there's some awful hardship along the way, too.  I don't think I'd have carried on with this after the first few chapters if it hadn't been a book-group book; but on the other hand I'd have missed a lot by giving up.

I let you go, by Clare Mackintosh. London: Sphere, 2014.

A five-year-old, Jacob, is killed by a hit-and-run driver; the grieving mother of a dead child runs away to the Welsh coast; two police detectives on the verge of an affair can't let the hit-and-run case go, and continue to investigate.  It all seems pretty straightforward for the first half of the book, until there's a breakthrough - and a cliff-edge for the reader worthy of Jeffrey Deaver at his finest.  And it all gets even darker. I would warn (and this is slightly spoilery) that if you've found the Helen-and-Rob plot arc on the Archers distressing, this may not be one for you.  I found it hard reading at points but the need to know is very strong by that point.

Triumphs and turbulence: my autobiography, by Chris Boardman. London: Ebury, 2016.

Normally, I read for a bit on the train and then pick up my knitting and put on a podcast.  I started reading this on Thursday night, had to lever myself away from it to switch the light off, and finished reading on the train nearing home on Friday night.  I slightly regret reading this so quickly, but it had to be back at the library on Saturday...  This is a wonderful book.  If you like Chris Boardman and have heard him commenting and commentating, and podcasting, you can hear this in his own voice. It's self-deprecating, sardonic, funny, often painfully self-critical.  Boardman's fully aware of the degree of self-obsession required for performance sport, to the extent of having missed the birth of his second child because he needed to recce a course ahead of a race; and of the difficulty of leaving that mindset after retirement from competition.  And there are some great pen-portraits of the people he's worked with and raced with and against over the years, and a sense of the deep debt of gratitude he owes to his wife Sally, who's kept it all together all these years.

One day ahead: a Tour de France misadventure, by Richard Grady. Kindle edition.

You couldn't get a higher contrast to the last one than this book, read on the Eurostar on the way to Alsace in September.  Four amateur cyclists decide to race the 2012 Tour route one day ahead of the professional péloton , and rope a motley collection of friends in for the ride and as support workers. It's an occasionally very funny account of the attempt, and the love of France comes through strongly; but it's also an honest, warts-and-all account of what happens when you get eight disparate people, with different expectations and senses of entitlement, living in close quarters in two camper-vans for nearly a month.  It's a combination of a tale of massive, heroic endeavour and a warning never to go on holiday with people you don't know well...