Where the Crawdads Sing, Dead Lions and Back When We Were Grownups

Reading the first half, I thought I was on the way to a five star book. I was enthralled by the description of the North Carolina coast, the marsh, swamp, lagoon, bogs and woods. Even Fen is described, not like the Fens of Lincolnshire, but more like bogs but with greater water exchange and less acidic, but that over time can become bog like. The writing about nature is a passion that shines through, a passage about the mating rituals of fireflies is amazing.

I liked how the story follows Kya through time, left alone at a young age to fend for herself in this (to us) inhospitable lonely place, that becomes to Kya a source of freedom. I liked how Kya gets older and wiser as she copes with the years of solitude. But the story is also a mystery as we occasionally jump forward from 1952, and succeeding years, to 1969 where a death has come someone Kya knows. She does have the odd communication with people in the nearby town, and as she reaches her teens, older boys do find her fascinating.

However, at this halfway stage, the book becomes something different, more like a romantic melodrama. Fortunately, this is over quite quickly and the short seven page Chapter 31 is incredibly emotional. The chapters do actually come thick and fast towards the end, with another change in direction, to an unfortunately predictable conclusion. But that cannot spoil a memorable story.

Although there are six Jackson Lamb spy thrillers by Mick Herron, I had read the first and then the last two. So having jumped back to book two, I vaguely remembered the main characters from before. Although I did have to write them down so as not to get lost. There should be a list at the beginning. I think that the books work best when it concentrate on the dialogue, especially the dry, sarcastic and witty humour.

For example, River's grandfather was big in intelligence but "Thought to be something big in the Ministry of Transport. Naturally he took the blame for the deficiencies in the local bus service". His elderly grandfather thought "he'd sleep like the dead for an hour, then lie wide-eyed until morning. If there was anything he missed about being young, it was that careless ability to fall into oblivion like a bucket dropped down a well, then pulled up slowly replenished".

Less my kind of book when the action takes over, the last part is all gripping plot. So why am I glad when it's all over?

The first dozen pages in I thought this is not the book for me. Only the author kept me going, and I'm so glad I did. The book is all about Rebecca, in fact the title could easily have been "Finding Rebecca". She feels at times as if she is on a quest to find her old self, this new woman seeming completely different. Having lost her first husband "It occurred to her, so far, the only step she'd taken toward retrieving that old Rebecca was to try and reconnect with the old Rebecca's boyfriend". But her new life is so full and busy, too much at everyone's beck and call? Trying to entertain a new man on her own at home she complains "Another family melee with an extra person added".

There is a lot of humour in the book, a discussion about getting a dog is an unlikely source of fun. Rebecca lives in a big mansion with Poppy, a forgetful great uncle who, at 99, is a good source of amusement. There are in fact, large chunks of typical Anne Tyler dialogue. There is also the odd section about bereavement dealt with sympathetically by the author. But more than anything the reader is asked to think about their lives and how they have changed. Maybe the old Rebecca was not worth finding.