Books

One of the joys of fiction is when a novel embraces a well known topic or theme and enlightens the reader more than any article or report. Emma Healey’s first novel Elizabeth is Missing is such a case. It covers dementia, a subject every much in vogue but it made me aware of the condition in [...]

The espionage thriller has changed in genre over the years. We first had the public school adventurer of John Buchan and Bulldog Drummond, then the more complex novels of Graham Greene and Eric Ambler, more cosmopolitan and tinged by faith; by the fifties the glamorous sexy James Bond seemed part [...]

There is a genre of detective writing called Mediterranean noir. The darkness of the novel contrasts with the brightness and colour of Mediterranean life. The market leader is Jean Issu who sets his novels in Marseilles. I was recently recommended Death In Florence. I know, I know Florence is  not [...]

Maintaining the theme of fiction set in the less well known theatres of warfare in World War Two, I have just read I Can’t Begin to Tell You by Elizabeth Buchan. Given the fast moving pace of the novel and the adventures of the heroine Kay I wondered if the writer was in any way related to [...]

One of the pleasures of writing for the Rust is the collegiate way which information is shared e.g. John Pargiter forever wants betting tips from our sports writers. I cannot help here but readers may have noticed on our arts pages an interest in the pre and post World War Two years : Foyles War [...]

Alex Preston’s third novel In Love and War is impressive. Its the factional story of Esmond Lowndes’ stay in Florence from 1937 to 1945. He is the son of British Union of Fascist leader Sir Lionel Lowndes and, after being sent down from Cambridge after a sex scandal, he goes to Florence [...]

The other day at lunch with Daffers, Ivan was shouting the odds for Sussex sport. I will leave this to him. Alice Mansfield observed that in the art field Constable lived and painted in Brighton, Jaques Emile  Blanche, more known for his portraiture, lived and worked in Brighton and was a member [...]

With the big beasts of American literature – Bellow, Roth, Updike – moving on or in advanced years, there is a vacuum at the top end. Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggars, John Irving, Thomas Puncheon, Richard Ford, Anne Tyler, Jane Smiley enjoy both critical and popular acclaim. Another who [...]