This month’s picks include thrilling speculative fiction, a twisting crime drama and a wistful wartime ode to the beauty of the Fens
Words by Charlotte Griffiths
Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang
What a gorgeous book this is. C Pam Zhang’s new novel is an extraordinary piece of work – so well formed, so luxuriously detailed, such sensuously descriptive prose. On the surface, this is post-apocalyptic speculative fiction at its best. This world’s life-changing event was the ‘smog’, a cloud of poison that emerged from the American Midwest, wiping out crops, destroying ecosystems, shutting borders and reshaping humanity’s existence.
Stuck in London, unable to get back to her home in America and fresh out of options, a young Chinese-American chef takes a post in the Italian mountains, cooking for an inscrutable, ultra-rich individual. His life’s work is the stronghold he and his daughter have built: a high-tech, fortress-like colony, out of reach of the starving, increasingly desperate population far below.
Upon arrival, our chef relinquishes contact with the outside world, but gains access to long-lost foodstuffs and exotic ingredients, courtesy of the mysterious daughter’s subterranean laboratories that honeycomb deep into the mountain, reviving extinct species and perfecting their genetics. Increasingly elaborate dinners are ordered by her employer to entertain his investors and other inhabitants of the colony, serving the rarest of meats and money-can’t-buy tasting menus to garner funds for research and safeguard the future of the community.
Zhang’s food writing is exquisite: the descriptions of the courses served and the poetic way she conveys tastes and scents will linger on your palate, making you hunger for impossible dishes. As the situation outside the stronghold becomes more desperate and the community more isolated, the evenings become more elaborate, the stakes get higher and the chef’s boundaries are tested – but can anyone put a price on survival? A bewilderingly brilliant novel about desire, pleasure, the subtle difference between hunger and want – and what one truly needs to survive.
Flatlands by Sue Hubbard
This quiet, beautiful book is a retelling of the classic novella The Snow Goose, by Paul Gallico. Here, the action moves from Essex to the wilderness of the Fens, jumping in time between 87-year-old Freda, now in her London care home, and reminiscences of her 12-year-old self, evacuated to Lincolnshire in World War II. Young Freda finds herself living with a grim-faced and abusive farming family, eking out a bleak existence on what seems like the edge of the world. Friendless, loveless and deeply hurt, she stumbles into an abandoned lighthouse which has become home to 27-year old Philip, a conscientious objector, consumed by the horrors of war, who’s abandoned his studies at Oxford for agricultural labour while he explores his love of painting. The two outcasts find a unique sort of sibling-like kinship in one another: together they care for an injured goose and slowly learn how to trust each other and the world, discovering the therapeutic power of art and seeking solace in nature’s riches – but how long can they keep the real world at bay? Flatlands has a superb sense of place and will be deeply evocative for those who adore our local landscape: passages of beautiful nature writing will transport you straight to the marshes of the Fens, no matter where you are when reading.
Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister
Now this is a thriller. Be sure to start Just Another Missing Person with a whole day ahead of you, or you’ll be up till 3am finding out what happens. The book’s packed with twists, turns and reveals that’ll make you shriek, and the stories are so intricately entangled that you’ll wonder how anyone could come up with such a neat plot. 22-year-old Olivia is seen on CCTV entering a dead-end alleyway, but never leaves and hasn’t been heard from since. Before disappearing, she sent a text to her new housemates, asking them to ‘please come’. DI Julia Day is in charge of the investigation, which she knows is a race against time, taking her attention from daughter Genevieve and her complex relationship with Genevieve’s father. Leaving the crime scene, Julia is accosted by a man who instructs her to frame someone for the murder. If she doesn’t plant evidence, he’ll reveal her secret – what she and Genevieve did years ago. How far would Julia go to protect her daughter? Staggeringly well plotted, this is a brilliant read you simply won’t be able to put down.
The Sentence by Christina Dalcher
Christina Dalcher’s dystopian novels should always be put straight on the to-read pile, and The Sentence is no exception. Strap in for this nail-biting American thriller that rewrites the rules around the death penalty. New legislation states that if an executed criminal is later found to have been innocent, the prosecuting attorney will be put to death. So far, this has kept executions to a minimum, with few lawyers convinced beyond doubt and willing to put their own life on the line. Prosecutor Justine Boucher requested the death penalty only once, but new evidence has emerged questioning the verdict – now it’s a race against time to put things right. This is an unblinking look at the horrific nature of the death penalty; as we move between chapters, we leave the main story to read the diary of a death row inmate and recollections from Justine’s college years, plus grim descriptions of executions and the moral conundrums struggled with by academics and legal practitioners. Is it ever right to take a life? A brilliantly written, heavy but thought-provoking read that will satisfy those looking for a challenge this summer.
