Our Christmas tree is up at last and festooned with coloured lights instead of the normal plain ones.
A1 is reading What the Dark Whispers* by MJ Lee. If I was a publisher’s reader and this was a first novel, I might say “Shows some promise, but needs work. Reject with encouragement.” But MJL has published 30 crime novels in the last ten years and really should have sorted out his plotting. (Example: An apparent suicide pays for self-immolation petrol with his own credit card, and the baffled cops are unable to identify him.) And the book badly needs a proofreader.
A2, inspired by an article by Aditya Chakrabortty, is rereading Kingdom Come by JG Ballard. In an imaginary future, suburban blokes string St George’s flags from lamp-posts, trash Asian shops and try to burn down asylum hostels. Couldn’t happen here.
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