#Review - Last One at the Party by Bethany Clift

Cover design by Jo Myler

Last One at the Party
Bethany Clift
Hodder, 4 February 2021
Available as: HB, 355pp, e, audio
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN: 9781529332124

I'm grateful to Hodder for an advance e-copy of Last One at the Party via NetGalley to consider for review. I have also bought a hardback copy from Wallingford Bookshop, my usual enablers in these matters.

There is so much in Last One at the Party. It is a brilliant premise, admittedly not original but executed with verve and empathy, creating such a good, readable book.

Our narrator - we never learn her name - is, literally, the least lone at the party. (She points out that this is her won't, she's always the one left behind collecting the lost coats and cleaning up the house). She's the only person to have survived the End of Days - a sudden, distressing and inevitably fatal virus which sweeps the world before any measures can be found to contain it. Set a few years in the future, there are call-backs to the current covid-19 pandemic but 6DM is in a different league.

We're never told why she survived - this isn't a painstakingly researched pandemic book, nor would it be in character for our hero to understand such matters - she tells us herself that she's not very practical and changing a lightbulb is at the limit of what she can manage. When disaster falls, she struggles to deal with her husband's body, and then sets off into London for a several weeks's booze and drug spree, occupying the best hotel rooms she can access and looting Harrods for fancy bags and scarves.

If you are the sort of reader who lusts after the complexities and details of survival post apocalyse - food stocks, medical supplies, firearms, fuel and so on - you will I think probably leave the book there. That isn't what Last One at the Party is about AT ALL. Our protagonist has an almost wilful lack of survival skills and refuses to acquire them now she needs them. She also refuses to carry out what seems like a basic act of mercy, which left me really not liking her much in this part of the story.

What she does have, though, is self-awareness. As she narrates her story, she recalls her earlier life and the layers of expectations it created for her; her ideal parents, with their romantic outlook on life, her girl friend Ginny, who has mentored and mounted here at work; her self-destructive gay best friend Xav; her husband James. It becomes clear that she was in a mess before the pandemic and I even began to suspect that the helplessness we see at the start of the book was as much a mask as any of the other "selves" that she seems to have developed through life. As the book continued I became more and more fascinated and intrigued by this complex, human and constantly developing character. It's almost as if, to be who she really is, she needs to lose everything and everyone. Then she needs to find a way to live with herself - the one successful response to the pandemic has been the distribution of vast stocks of suicide pills, a continual temptation, and the narrator has also managed to source ample supplies of Tramadol.

It is, at least to begin with, a relatively safe, abundant world that she falls into. There is nobody else around to fight for the large stocks of food left behind - everyone died so quickly that shortages didn't develop - and electricity and water continue to operate for some weeks (the main feature of this apocalypse that felt a bit off, I suspect power would be gone in days - though car satnav would probably work for ages, those satellites aren't going anywhere). In a sense that provides a cushion, allowing the narrator to come to terms with her loss (well, not really come to terms, but to begin to). It's understandable, I think, that she goes a bit off the rails, with no immediate need to be practical.

That does change, but the book never gets to full-on "Survivors" mode with the solution of practical problems the overriding driver. There are some sticky moments, dangers, and crises (the ultimate one leading to a situation of great jeopardy which the narrator is able to meet with determination and skill) but the real drama here always arises from the earlier choices the narrator made, and her sometimes brutally honest assessments of them.  We see her happy and fulfilled as a music journalist before a crisis brings that to an end, then, again, happily working for a shipping journal and globetrotting to write up a port or a tanker (she learns at one point to make a fishing net - so, maybe not as impractical as she claims). We see that end, and her changing as she thinks she must to satisfy others - husband, co-workers, her parents. 

Her life seems to get darker, with the eruption of 6DM coming almost as a deliverance. What would you do if you were suddenly alone to enjoy, intact, all the goodies of life? This book certainly made me ponder what I'd do, where I'd go, if freed from the need to worry about the everyday. Making a new world, a new life, must be about more than stockpiling fuel and rigging solar panels, it has to start within oneself. That's the insight that Clift so brilliantly explores in this book and it is so much more interesting than mere practicalities. In fact, it's a cracker of a book and one I'd strongly recommend. (In the end, the empathy and insight of Clift's writing even won me over to sympathise with her protagonist, despite some misgivings at the start - if you find yourself hating her at one point, give it some time, keep going).

For more information about Last One at the Party, see the publisher's website here.

Review - Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay

Survivor Song

Paul Tremblay

Titan Books, 7 July 2020

Available as: PB, 336 pp, e

Source: Advance e-copy via Netgalley

ISBN:9781785657863

I'm grateful to Titan for a free advance e-copy of Survivor Song via Netgalley.

In an alternative USA, a deadly virus spreads, overwhelming the hospitals, bringing normal life to a halt and prompting bizarre conspiracy and origin theories.

No, this isn't covid-19, although Tremblay's timing is spooky. Rather it's an aggressive mutation of rabies. Aggressive both in being super-contagious, and very quick to take hold. Within hours of being bitten or otherwise exposed, victims becomes irrational, frenzied and dangerous. Tremblay cleverly gives us the bones of the zombie story - but in a plausible and rational version of the world. The story then follows several hours in the lives of two women as they struggle to make their way though a familiar city that's suddenly become a post-apocalyptic landscape.

A comparison with the current pandemic is the most obvious point to make about this book, and Tremblay is definitely on the knuckle here. Witness his portrayal of doctors and nurses struggling to respond without adequate PPE and without knowing exactly how the virus behaves or what it may or may not do, unclear rules ('last night there was confusion as to whether turning off the light was a recommendation or if it was a requirement in accordance with the government-mandated curfew'), the behaviour of 'doubters, naysayers and the most cynical political opportunists' - and a 'Jackass president'.

However, that would only be the most superficial analysis. There's a lot more happening. The bulk of the story is about two amazing young women, paediatrician Ramola Sherman and her eight-months pregnant friend Natalie - who needs to get to hospital fast. "Rams" is British, born in South Shields with a mother who emigrated from Mumbai as a child, and a white father - she is therefore an object of double suspicion to the paranoid militias which have taken to the streets. "Nats", her college friend, is in deep trouble - her husband lost to the virus, her child coming along and about to be born in a world that's all gone to pieces. The relationship between the two is well drawn, funny but also moving and - at times - downright heartbreaking. 

Tremblay is matter-of-fact about the fact that Nats is suffering mood swings: 'The earlier muting of her personality has swung one hundred eighty degrees into manic levels of Natalie. is this how she is coping?' - the question being, or is it something else? Ramola is fearless and resourceful, whether begging help from strangers, working the medical system or figuring out what to do next in an increasingly constrained series of desperate moves through a landscape gone to Hell where humans, animals, the authorities may all be a threat (Natalie's so short on time that a traffic jam blocking the way to a besieged hospital may be enough to cause a fatal delay). 

It's a story heavy on action, a chase from one danger and into another as hospitals fail, roads are blocked and law breaks down. But it's told with delicacy and even moments of beauty - leaves fall '...whirling in invisible eddies... until they land, as they must, and join the autumnal mob usurping the shoulders of the road'; a young police officer stands 'as tall as a folktale' and Nats' and Rams' odyssey intersects with other sad lives, in particular allowing a deeply affecting portrayal of two young men, Josh and Luis, living their lives on the margins. They believe, perhaps, that the outbreak is their time to shine, to be the heroes of the movie. They're wrong ('Luis thinks that the dimming or leaking away of who you are is the worst thing that can happen to anyone') and indeed, one of the ideas examined mercilessly here is the tendency in real life to see events such as this through the lens of a film or TV miniseries or, indeed, a fairytale. Nevertheless, the two get a moment that is 'them at their best' and an opportunity to do the right thing.

This is not, Tremblay tells us several times, a fairytale, and his roundup of what happens after ('The virus doesn't herald the end of the world... [but] emergency services... will be stretched to their breaking points, exacerbated by the wily antagonists of fear, panic, misinformation... a president unwilling and woefully unequipped to make the rational, science-based decisions necessary...') may perhaps be taken as a description of the real world, as much as of a story, at least in an optimistic case.

It's a totally gripping novel, actually taking place over the course of a few hours and best read in one go, allowing the reader to be taken over by the sense of urgency and peril here. A horror story where the general setup may feel familiar from fiction but the detail is painfully credible and true to life. I'd recommend.

For more about the book, see the publisher's website here.

Review - No Way by Simon Morden

Cover by www.blacksheep-uk.com

No Way (Frank Kittridge, 2)
Simon Morden
Gollancz, 21 February 2019
PB, 384pp

I bought my copy of this book from Wallingford Bookshop and the audio from Audible.

This is another book I've been listening to in the car on my way to the station and back.

No Way follows on from One Way - beware because some spoilers for One Way follow. Look away now if you haven't read it yet, and go and do that. While you could read No Way as a standalone, it is much better enjoyed after reading the earlier book.

One Way told how in the middle years of the 21st century, Frank Kittridge, sentenced to decades in a privately run, super-max prison for murdering his son's dealer, is made an offer: join a team being assembled sent to Mars to establish a colony, and he can have limited freedom, living out his remaining years on the red planet.

The deal turns out to be a trap - Frank and his fellow cons, dismissed as 'chimps' by the XO Corporation, are destined to be killed off by an XO agent, Brack. The base they have constructed will then be handed over to NASA, which has been told that it will be constructed using robots. But the plan fails and Frank kills Brack, which is where No Way picks up.

Frank's dilemma is what to do next. Can XO deactivate life support in the MBO base, killing him? probably. Will they? Well, maybe they need him to clean up the base for the use of the NASA astronauts? But what then? The first part of this book is haunted by that tension, with every move Frank makes placing him at risk. As he notes, "Mars is trying to kill you". And there are particular reasons to be concerned - things he discovers as he goes about his daily tasks. (One of the joys of this book is Frank's practical bent. A builder by profession, he has a knack for solving problems, which is useful and makes for some interesting passages - it all comes over as very well researched and Morden largely avoids info dumps, although a map would have been useful).

I'm not going to exactly what happens to cause Frank concern, although I'm sorry to say the publishers print it on the back of the book. If you can possibly do so I'd avoid reading any of that because there is a little bit of a frisson from watching the signs in the story and asking yourself, can that be right? The tension only increases when the NASA  astronauts arrive. Frank's cut a new deal with XO: he will clean things up, lie to NASA - pretend the base was built by robots - and in return be given a trip home. But that means he'd have no credibility if he were to warn the NASA crew about certain other things. This dilemma torments Frank: for the first time in years - apart from the brief spell when he was working with the other cons - he has people he can talk to, work with, and who respect him (even if they think he's Brack, a man Frank hated). But he can't be open with them. That would blow his deal with XO, and in any case, the NASA team would likely not believe him.

As things begin to go wrong, this pressure on Frank becomes almost tangible, accentuated by the cramped quarters of the base and its remoteness from Earth - contactable only via XO satellites. Mordern is very good as depicting Frank's anguish, his dithering and self-recrimination. Frank feels that all his choices have gone wrong, from the moment he killed that dealer, and he's continually undermined by self doubt - even in the face of all his success at staying alive and building and maintaining a habitable base (and other things which would be spoilery to describe).

It all comes to a climax, of course, with the survival of the base - and the crew - in real jeopardy. XO is a merciless opponent, and conditions on Mars very much favour them. In the end Frank is faced with the unenviable choice of coming clean, and being treated as a criminal or a madman, and staying silent, and seeing everyone die.

A superb, and superbly different, thriller. The audiobook version was excellent, William Hope delivering Frank's story in an appropriately clipped, gravelly voice that evoked the dusty wastes of Mars and the sweaty, patched-up nature of his life there.

For more about the book (no spoilers) see the Gallancz website

Review - Adrift by Rob Boffard

Cover design by Charlotte Stroomer

Adrift
Rob Boffard
Orbit, 7 June 2018
PB, 371pp
Source: Review copy provided by the publisher

While meticulous in its space opera setting - the remote space station, the wormhole "gate", fusion reactors and inertial dampers - this is at hear a very old fashioned survival story, which reminded me of books by authors like Alastair Maclean. Following a surprise attack which destroys Sigma Station, newbie tour guide Hannah, who's on her very first shift, finds herself alone in a beat-up shuttle, the sole crew apart from drunken pilot Volkova and in charge of a vocal and ill assorted group of passengers.

Classic disaster movie material they are - the restaurant critic running from a broken relationship, the honeymoon couple, a high-ranking politician, her husband and sons, a widow who's sold up the business she and her husband built up and gone - literally - to see the stars. None of them are particularly helpful in an emergency, but they all have strong opinions ("I'm gonna sue... I'm here on business, and your company just ignored all safety precautions.") In the face of such an overwhelming crisis, can Hannah hold herself together, overcome self-doubt and inexperience, and survive?

It's a riveting read, barely pausing as one catastrophe flows into the next. The Red Panda was never designed to do much more than paddle round the outside of Sigma Station, allowing tourists to gawp and the might leisure-couplex-cum-mining-colony. But, as it turns out, the ship doesn't even have a minimum of emergency provisions. Low on food, water and medical supplies, beset by internal arguments and menaced by a mysterious attack ship, survival seems a remote possibility.

I enjoyed the way that Boffard animates the story, giving all the passengers and crew distinct characters - there's a real danger with this kind of thing that the reader won't be able to tell who is who, or remember why they should care, but in Adrift you surely will very quickly learn who's who (and what's what).

The political background - which is relevant to the story and setting - is also convincingly portrayed. It's fifteen years since the war between the Colonies and the Frontier (i.e. Earth) ended with a treaty that's only been grudgingly accepted. All the characters look back to that history and the older ones have direct experience - whether fighting, reporting, taking part in the negotiations that ended the conflict or losing someone they loved. I sensed the tension and pain of that in much of the bickering aboard Red Panda, as well as in the heroics that are needed to address the crisis.

In the end it is, perhaps, a very personal story in which the protagonists - especially Hannah (who is, after all, wearing the "red shirt of command") and Jack, the cynical (and, frankly, rather unlikeable) journalist - need to come to terms with who they are and with who they want to be. (That might also be said for another character but I won't mention their name as it would be a spoiler).

This, too, reminded me of survival stories like South by Java Head or River of Death. In the end it's all about character, determination and pushing through.

All in all, a great, entertaining read filled with twists and moments of real dread. Recommended.

For more about the book, see Rob Boffard's website here or the Orbit site here.

Blogtour review - Force of Nature by Jane Harper

Force of Nature (Aaron Falk 2)
Jane Harper
Little, Brown 1 February 2018
HB, 376pp

I'm grateful to the publisher for a copy of this book and for inviting me to take part in the blogtour.

Aaron Falk is back!

Falk, introduced in Harper's debut The Dry last year, is a Federal Agent in Australia, assigned to investigate financial crime. In The Dry he was visiting his hometown for a funeral and became embroiled in a series of events entangled with his own past, taking him to areas of criminality a long way from his normal work

In Force of Nature, Falk is on safer ground and he has more distance, although the story still prompts him to reflect on his damaged relationship with his father. He is working one of his own cases (with his partner Carmen), investigating a money laundering racket at the centre of which is an apparently respectable family business.

Get the contracts...

Falk's and Carmen's bosses are desperate that they provide the documentation necessary to take down the money laundering gang. But there is a problem. They have recruited an informant in the firm - but now Alice has gone missing. Five women - Bree, Beth, Jill, Lauren and Alice - went into the woods on a corporate team building weekend - but only four came out.

It is imperative that you get the contracts...

OK, but just how do you do that when your contact has gone missing in the forest? The pressure is on, and Falk and Carmen head out into the bush to join the search team and attempt to understand what happened during the 4 day hike. Did the group simply suffer misfortune, or was Alice exposed by her bosses? Or did something else happen?

While The Dry was set amidst the scorching heat and baking drought of an Australian summer, Force of Nature takes place in the winter. When the five women go astray their  enemies are not thirst and fire but cold, wet and hunger.

And each other.

As things go from bad to worse, tensions between the women rise. They all have secrets, and some of them have good reason to want out of the group. Harper tells the story in alternating chapters first following Aaron and Carmen and then jumping back to the women in the forest, leading up to catastrophe. This is a formidable device for building tension, drip feeding enough information that we are aware, just in time, of the significance of something the detectives discover or of the wider impact of an apparently minor quarrel or argument among the five.

Among the alarming facts that comes out is that the woods were previously the domain of a killer, at least one of whose victims was never found. And he had a son and apprentice. So when the missing women stumble upon a sinister cabin in the woods, we wonder where things are going...

The characterisation of the women is particularly good, especially the sisters Beth and Bree, who carry different loads of guilt which affect their behaviour on the calamitous hike. Alice herself remains an enigma: even when she's with the others she seems only part there - we eventually learn the reason for this, as secrets are revealed and scores settled.

Overall, a suspenseful, intelligent psychological crime novel with no girls, no trains but a heck of a lot of tension. As good as or better than The Dry although clearly a more conventional crime thriller with Falk less personally involved in the case. It will keep you guessing till the very end.