The Betrayal, Sister and A Visit from the Goon Squad

The last three books I read were all excellent. The first was The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore that was long listed for the Man Booker prize, and should at least have made the shortlist. It is set in 1952 in Leningrad, where the siege during the war still haunts the city. But Moscow is oblivious to what the powers that be see as an embarrassment. Stalin's harsh regime holds sway and it's effects are told in the story of Andrei and Anna. A young hospital doctor and his wife, a nursery schoolteacher, are caught up accidentally with a high powered security chief and his ill son. The story is gripping and the writing is powerful and bewitching. The writer has published eleven novels including A Spell of Winter that won the Orange Prize, and in this latest book she is on top of her game. It is a sequel to the critically well received The Siege which I now wish I had read first.

Crime fiction is not usually my thing, but Rosamund Lupton's Sister is a classy piece of literature. The story is told by Beatrice who returns from New York as her sister is missing. Has she taken her own life as the police believe, or was she murdered. Beatrice thinks so but is in a minority of one. Her quest to find the truth becomes one of increasing danger, with the biggest twist at the end of any book I have read for years. This was one book I found very hard to put down.

The three books have all been by women writers and have all been terrific. But the last stands head and shoulders above the others. It is the best book I have read for a long time. I wasn't put off by the title. A Visit from the Goon Squad must be a reference to time (as in "time is a gooner") and it is time that plays a big part in the book. Each chapter tells a story from the point of view of a different character. They all connect in some way, and at times it is at first hard to know how. But the author does not keep you guessing for long, and the smallest clue will give you all the information you need. The main thread of the book is the music industry (which was what interested me in the first place), so we have Bennie, a producer, Sasha his assistant, someone in PR, a journalist and other family or friends. And each chapter can take place at a different time, even in the future. It sounds like a highly complex novel but somehow it works really well. The writing is excellent and no wonder it won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize For Fiction. I cannot recommend it highly enough.