The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton | Elizabeth Speller

I've been keen for Elizabeth to publish another book, as I found The Return of Captain John Emmett an excellent book. And in this novel, Speller has crafted another intriguing and well told story.

 There are many elements in this novel, it's complicated. There are equal measures of history, intrigue, ancient rites, architectural trends and a fair few characters to keep track of but the narrative is so well done that it all melds together into a great tale.

We come to care about the characters, we love the idyllic coutry estate and we desperately want to know what happened to Kitty Easton. 

The main character from The Return, Laurence Bartram goes to a country estate to help his friends (also from The Return) in the restoration of an old church on the property. Central to the church and the surrounding gardens is the idea and the design of a maze. 

It is set just after WWII and the characters are all affected by it and there is quite a bit of social commentary woven into the story. Bartram served and so did the men and boys from the estate. Not many came back.

Bartram meets the family of the estate, the Eastons, over whom lies a cloud of misery and darkness since the disappearance of the fiver year old heiress, Kitty. She was gone in the middle of the night and no amount of searching over the ensuing fifteen years has provided even a clue of what happened. Everyone fell apart and the family cloaked themselves in silence. One of the characters put is beautifully "We talk a lot but we don't say anything."

Bartram falls into the role of confidant and slowly puts together the puzzle and searches for answers.

Very satisfying and beautifully told story. I hope Elizabeth is busy writing another novel! 

The Woman with the Bouquet | Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

This was an interesting read, if somewhat unsatisfying. These are short stories which almost read like morality tales. The foibles of flawed humanity are explored. Often they revolve around mis-communication or lack of communication. The one I liked best which illustrates this is the powerful story "Perfect Crime" in which a wife pushes her husband off a cliff. She is accused of murder and remanded for two years, in which she professes her innocence. In that time she tells over and over the story of her happy life and happy fulfilled marriage to a great man. In the telling she convinces herself she didn't really do it, but mostly she finds it hard to understand why she could have done it. And it stems from her suspicions of a too happy life and a noxious friend who is a gossip monger. When she finally gets her hands on her husbands possessions, which she thinks will reveal his unfaithfulness and duplicity, she discovers he has a secret... which I won't spoil.
The style isn't all that fluid and I think it is because of the translation. I imagine it reads beautifully in the original.
Worth a read but won't be for everyone.

Homecoming | Bernhard Schlink

I've really enjoyed reading this new (for me) author and have just started a second book by him. The reason I picked this one up is because Schlink wrote "The Reader", the movie of which I thoroughly enjoyed.
In this novel, homecoming as a theme is explored through the main protagonist, Peter Debauer. He explores his childhood mystery regarding his absent father, a figure he only knows through brief details from his mother and a wonderful relationship he has with his paternal grandparents. 
The Odyssey forms part of the story's structure as we compare its journeys and homecomings and the one WWII soldiers had to endure. As Peter explores both he begins to look for his father and travels around Germany and eventually America to make contact with him.
It is a scholarly work, a lot of classical references and a whole lot on law and justice. Neither is surprising given Schlink's background as law professor, judge and crime writer. 
It could have been a heavy dry read, but it isn't . I really enjoyed it, the writing is superb, and even though in translation, it's an excellent read.

Buy at Fishpond.co.nz