Book Reviews: October 2014

Hunted by Hawks
Obianuju C Amamgbo
£11.95 (S-P)
Set in Eastern Nigeria, this is a tale of circumstance, moral choices, and familial values. When his youngest son becomes involved in a criminal gang while away at university, Ikenna, the novel’s protagonist, finds himself brought face toface with his own troubled past. Knowing that his family’s lives are in danger, he’s forced to confide in his wife and children at the risk of losing them, and so must relive the past he has tried so hard to conceal. Published some years after her debut novel, Hunted by Hawks explores the innerworkings of Nigerian gang culture, of blackmail, fear-mongering, and revenge. The novel unfolds like a cautionary tale, passed down through generations, with Igbo proverbs to boot. The book is dedicated to ‘all struggling to make a new start in life’ and, as with all good fiction, the narrative contains themes and dilemmas that everyone can relate to. Helen Frear
Obianuju C Amamgbo on Wordpress

DH Lawrence Zombie Hunter
Hunt Emerson/Kevin Jackson
Free download (Dawn of the Unread)
The seventh instalment of the Nottingham-based graphic novel tells the story of our favourite potty mouth, the man who made swearing an art form after Penguin’s victory in the 1960 Lady Chatterley Trial. Lawrence was known as the High Priest of Love but according to Kevin Jackson, he was really the High Priest of Loathe, a proper Mr Angry who threw a hissy at everything and anyone, making him ‘the Basil Fawlty of literary modernism’. Lawrence often described his enemies as half dead and Britain as a giant graveyard, a vast coffin sinking into the seas, so the zombie metaphor is more than apt. It’s a hilarious tale, superbly drawn by underground comix icon Hunt Emerson, with a range of embedded essays from the likes of Billy Ivory, Catherine Brown and the DH Lawrence Society. The penis is definitely mightier than the sword for Eastwood’s favourite son. Matt Clay

Influence
Chris Parker
£6.99 (Urbane Publications)
Most British crime novels adhere to a formula. The cop protagonist is a lone wolf, has a drink problem, is divorced or just unlucky with women, and is generally defined by his taste in music. Detective Inspector Peter Jones is none of these things. And he’s aided in his investigation not by a stalwart Lewis-style sergeant but by ‘communications guru’ Marcus Kline. Fast friends, though different in their outlook, their relationship is at the heart of the story. Set in an instantly recognisable Nottingham, Parker’s evocation of the city is fond if sardonic. A priceless scene has Jones and his girlfriend, stuck in city centre traffic, imagining Nottingham as the wellspring of a zombie apocalypse. Parker’s wry humour keeps the darker elements of the plot from overwhelming the book. Persevere through a backstory-heavy opening (it’s sixty pages before the first murder) and Influence develops into something taut, intelligent and effortlessly readable. Neil Fulwood
Urbane Publications website

A Brief History of Whistling
John Lucas and Allan Chatburn
£9.99 (Five Leaves)
If ever a book should be turned into a Radio 4 documentary, it’s this delightful lament for a lost art form. Lucas gives a comprehensive analysis that takes us to the Jarrow Crusades of 1699, the music halls of the late nineteenth century, its role in the workplace and as a form of self-expression and communication. When describing the mechanics of whistling, he inadvertently does a Nigella, “The tongue is all-important... place the tip just behind the front teeth, raise and lower, push, withdraw, and by such means you… make trills, warbles, pure notes.” Mmm. It’s littered with literary references, lobs in some jazz and cricket, and then is presented as a form of resistance that will inevitably sound twee to the ‘YouTube generation’. Rey Chow put forward similar arguments for the Walkman in eighties China, claiming it was used to resist communist propaganda. Unfortunately, this doesn’t equate to meaningful change. James Walker
Five Leaves website