Early Reviewers: The FARC

The FARC: The Longest Insurgency by Gary Leech (April 2011 batch)

I requested this from the Early Reviewers Programme as I have a great interest in Latin America, being a Hispanic Studies graduate.

Journalist Garry Leech takes us through the history of the Colombian guerrilla group, emerging out of the La Violencia up to today. Told in chronological order, we can see that while the FARC has changed both in itself and in the perception of others - as best shown in chapter 5 : 'Narco-guerrillas' to Narco-terrorists' – the reason for its success appears to have remained constant, the government's lack of interest in the poorer areas of the country. Another important issue covered in the book is that of US intervention in Colombia, ostensibly due to the war on drugs.

The FARC is not something that is often covered impartially, so I found Leech's measured text refreshing, while he did not shy from informing the reader of the FARC's ruthless methods, he also showed us the wider Colombian context, one in which both government troops and paramilitary groups should also be held accountable for the vast number of killings and internal displacements.

While I have read quite a few articles about the FARC, I appreciated Leech's methodical explanations, starting with its beginnings and moving through its different important periods right up until the present day. By placing the FARC in context, both politically and socially, the reader is able to see how the guerrilla group has hung on in Colombia for half a century.

My main criticism would be its length, while it is great as an introduction, I would have liked to have gone into more detail, though this would be a good book for someone who wants to get an outline of the FARC. ( )

 

This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

Jim Stringer Railway Mystery Series

When I won the 7th installment in Librarything's Early Reviewers Programme, I thought I'd better get started on the series.  I come from a family which love the railway, Dad's pretty much a trainspotter and even has a garden railway (which his grandson loves to play with!).  We always try and travel by train as much as possible.  I do like a good mystery, so when I saw the first book a few years ago, I thought "perfect"!

The Necropolis Railway is the first in the Jim Stringer railway mystery series. Jim is the son of a butcher, but he dreams of being a train driver. He finds a job on his local line, but gets his big opportunity when a Mr. Smith arranges a job for him in London a big railway company. Waterloo at the turn of the 20th Century is a dark and dangerous place, Stringer replaces a boy at the yard who was murdered and has trouble fitting in. The railway company also provides trains for the Necropolis Railway, and Jim soon starts transporting the bodies.
If you like trains, this is the book for you. Martin goes into a lot of detail about the railway, the protagonist, Jim Stringer is the early 20th Century version of a trainspotter. Stringer also speaks in the slang of the time, which, for me, adds a lot of humour and the OTT drama typical of books of that era.
A light mystery, good for a commuter. ( )

The second installment of Andrew Martin's Jim Stringer series is The Blackpool Highflyer. Jim has moved back north and is working for the Lancashire and Yorkshire. Still not a driver, but working towards that, Jim's colleague is the rather dapper Clive, well-dressed, a hit with the ladies. The Stringers decide to rent out a room in their home to George, another up and coming lad, who works in the ticket office.
As the weather warms up, Clive and Stringer are to take mill workers on a jolly to Blackpool, unfortunately, this is when tragedy strikes. In the midst of turbulent times, socialist groups against mill owners and even the railway companys, who is to blame? Jim takes up the case when a split second decision leaves him emotionally involved.
I enjoyed picking up Jim's story, as well as the character of his wife being more fleshed out, she is no shrinking violet of a housewife. I look forward to reading more about her. Martin also does well to set the scene historically, the mills of northern England and the trips to the seaside towns.
As in The Necropolis Railway, there is a lot of train info here, Martin fairly peppers the text with trivia and jargon, but it never feels affected or as if it were getting in the way of the story. This is a light murder mystery, but the railway backdrop gives it its quirky edge. ( ) 

  

In The Lost Luggage Porter, Stringer has left off engine work as a result of an accident. He signs up to be York's newest railway detective. After a meeting with the titular porter, Stringer is pointed in the direction of a criminal outfit operating around the station. Are Brains and the Blocker also mixed up in the recent murders, all three being somehow related with the railway?

Stringer's new chief decides to take advantage of his not being known locally, and gets him to work undercover to try and infiltrate the gang.
The encounter with th lost luggage porter sets in motion a chain of events, which will lead Stringer as far as Paris and put his life in danger. In this installment, we get more of an idea of Stringer's wife. Heavily pregnant, she is worried that the baby'll will be the end of her life. She is more involved than ever in the suffragette movement, causing friction between her and her father-in-law, who tries to 'help' her by sending her columns on household hints.
Another entertaining installment of the series, I look forward to book 4. As I said about the previous books, the charm for is in the backdrop of the railway. ( )

In Murder at Deviation Junction, Jim is on a winter's trip with his family when the train makes an unscheduled stop and a body is uncovered.
We have moved on a couple of years, Stringer is up for promotion, but is up against his direct superior, who would prefer to see him shuffling papers. Stringer should be on the trail of a football thug, but can't keep away from the mysterious circumstances surrounding the discovered body of man who apparently committed suicide. As in previous books, Stringer jumps blindly into danger, following the trail of 5 men caught on film by the dead man, taking him to London and even as far north as Inverness.
Jim is showing his frustration about being so near the railways, but yet not allowed to drive the trains, but his growing family is banking on his promotion. His wife, Lydia, is moving up in the Co-operative, intent on bringing the family up, not helped by a drunk Jim pitching up at her Christmas do. I still wish the author would give Lily more print, as she is a great character.
The series is still entertaining for me, the trains and the penny dreadful style. It is a gentle mystery, one for a quiet afternoon on the sofa. Number 5 beckons. ( ) 

Death on a Branch Line : A chance meeting at York Station with a condemned man causes Jim Stringer to put off his trip to Scarborough with his wife to go to the small village of Adenwold instead. Hugh Lambert persuades Stringer, more by his manner than anything else, that he is innocent of murdering his father, and that his brother could be in danger. As Lambert's hanging is set for the Monday, Stringer only has a weekend to discover the true murderer.
Stringer and his wife, Lydia, stay at the inn while they try to get to the bottom of Sir George's murder. Adenwold is a sleepy village, whose decline has been accelerated by the coming of the railway. It is a village of its time, with the local lords, in the guise of the Lamberts, a cricket match, rabbit shooting, an eccentric station master with his toy soldiers and a ever-so hands on vicar. Add into the mix the heightening tension between the U.K. and Germany, and a man with papers in German, and you have all of the ingredients of a good mystery.
I enjoyed the book, especially the short time frame, which made the story move at a cracking pace. I am also giving this an extra half a star for Lydia finally getting the page time she deserves. In this, the fifth instalment of the Railway Detective series, Jim's wife is along for the ride, and gets stuck right into the mystery.
The next book is ready and waiting! ( ) 

The Last Train to Scarborough, number 6 in the Jim Stringer series. Jim's wife is pushing him to leave the Railway Police Force and to move into becoming a solicitor, but the Chief has one last job for him. A railway man has disappeared from a lodging house in Scarborough, and is presumed dead. Jim is sent to Scarborough posing as an engine man along with Tommy Nugent, a fellow member of the Chief's shooting club.
Paradise, the lodging house, is an odd place. It is run by the beautiful, but strange Miss Rickerby and her brother, Adam, who is not the full shilling. There are two other lodgers, Vaughan and Fielding, both of whom seem keen to befriend Stringer. All of them are under suspicion.
Martin uses a different technique to drive the plot forward, the narrative is split between Stringer trying to uncover the truth and him coming to on a boat under guard. So we have two mysteries, the disappearance of the railway man, who the captain of the boat is and why he is so interested in Stringer's deductions. It works well, keeping up the tension and suspense, also we get a look at a different kind of machine from the era, a steamboat.
I enjoyed this, and look forward to the next installment, The Somme Station, which I received through the Early Reviewers Programme. ( ) 

I received  The Somme Stations  from the Librarything Early Reviewers Programme, and it galvanised me into getting stuck into the series.
In this, the 7th Jim Stringer book, WW1 is in full flow and a North Eastern Railway Battalion is being formed. Stringer signs up, and joins other railway men being trained in Spurn. The first part of the book deals with their training.
They are a mixed bag from Dawson, a porter, to two other railway coppers, Scholes and Flower, as well as Oamer from the ticket office and two underaged lads. They are joined by the Butler brothers, twins Roy and Andy, a pair of brutes ready for grunt work, and Oliver, who is looking out for them.
One of the youngsters, William, is found dead in the water, and suspicion falls on all of the men, none of which has an alibi. This cloud of suspicion hangs over them as they make their way to the front, being sent right up to the frontline. Stringer's railway experience is soon put to good use as he drives the small engines to supply the soldiers with shells and bring back the wounded. Despite being sent to the front, and the danger they are under, an MP, Thackeray, will not let the matter drop.
Similar in tone to the previous books, as Stringer tries to uncover the murderer under difficult circumstances. Martin does capture the time well, both the training and the reality of the front. It was interesting to read about the engines at the front, not something I had ever really heard of. Lydia gives us an insight into the situation back in Blighty, with women taking over the men's jobs, something I would like to have read more about. A good continuation of the series. ( )

Librarything's Early Reviewer Programme

What a lucky girl I am!  I have been putting my hat in the ring for Early Reviewer books to review for a while, but this is the first time I have been successful three months in a go!  LibraryThing has been running this programme for a few years now and get some really interesting books.


From the September 2010 batch, I received  Pereira Maintains.  I read the previous translation a few years ago, but since then I have lived in Portugal and so the book has a different relevance to me.  This makes it hard to compare the books, as I am not the same reader.
The book takes place in 1938, Portugal is suffering under the dictatorship of Salazar, Spain is in the midst of a civil war and the Nazis are on the rise.  Pereira is a journalist, someone who should know the real news stories, but he is like many people living under a regime, scared to put his head above the parapit to ask questions.  This all changes one day when he reads an article about death, the article affects him so much that he has to find the author and meet him.  It is his meeting with Monteiro Rossi, a young dissident, which starts him on a new path, one on which he begins to question the world around him.
The book put me in mind of the famous poem, "they came first for the Communists ..."  As many others have done before and since him, Pereira could have continued on his path of ignorance, hiding in his translations of French literature.  Monteiro Rossi is young, passionate and the son Pereira never had, I think this is what inspires Pereira to rebel.
Tabucchi really captures 1930s Lisbon and life under Salazar, this is a well-deserved entry on the 1001 list.

Next up was Drive-by Saviours, from the October 2010 batch. I put my name forward for it because of the parallel stories in the blurb - frustrated social worker Mark in Toronto and OCD sufferer Buni in Indonesia.  Their meeting half way through the book changes their lives.

The action alternates chapter by chapter between telling the life story of Buni and Mark on the cusp of a crisis.  They are very different men from very different countries and having led very different lives.
Buni, somewhat of a child genius, is from Rilaka, a small Indonesian island and helps him father fish.  Buni finally gets his chance to go to school through one of Suharto's schemes, but it involves him having to relocate to Makassar along with many other young Indonesians.  Unfortunately, school doesn't live up to his expectations, and Buni is soon bored and looking for alternatives.  He makes friends with 2 beggars and gives them money in exchange for telling him stories.  As Buni grows up, he becomes more and more disenchanted with life under the regime, his suffering from OCD becomes more acute, as a kind of coping mechanism.
Mark is working as a social worker in Toronto, but it is not working out.  During a power outage, he experiences a sense of camaraderie which he tries recapture later in the book.  His growing frustration grows, causing problems with his work and relationship with Sarah, his girlfriend.  On meeting Buni, Mark thinks he finds what he has been missing, and soon develops a relationship with him, one which will help him to reconnect with his estranged sister.  I didn't really like Mark, I found him to be very selfish and he seemed to blame everyone else for his problems, but the character was well-written.

Last, but not least, was  The House of the Mosque, from the November 2010 batch.  The book follows the story of an extended family living in a mosque in Iran. Starting in the 1950s, the family's fortunes are intertwined with the changing religious and political scene in Iran, to such an extent that the family itself is driven apart.
The family in the mosque are a mixed bunch. First there is the Iman Alsaberi, a weak man obsessed with hygiene and rather negligent of his family. The household is kept together by Aqa Jaan, who also keeps the records of the mosque, as previous generations have done. Their brother Muezzin, a blindman, calls the people to prayer.
Times are changing, with the death of Alsaberi comes a vaccum, into which a new Iman steps, one that will change the path of the mosque. Aqa Jaan tries to keep everything together, but the political turmoil makes it harder and harder.
As an introduction to Iran, this is a good read, but will keep you turning the pages to find out what happens to the family. The author has taken care to show the reader the conflict and destruction brought upon the family, but at the same time showing, for me, a rather little-known side to life in Iran.

1001 books to read before you die

The new book has hit the shelves and a fellow bookcrosser posted the changes in the forum.  There is a bit of chuntering going on as the list is basically the same, with only 11 changed books (see below).  According to an American bookcrosser, this was because the 2nd edition was a U.K. edition, only available on import to the U.S.  


Taken off the list:
1. Animal's People  TBR
2. The Reluctant Fundamentalist
3. The Kindly Ones
4.A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian   read
5.Small Island  read
6.The Plot Against America  read

7.The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time  read
8. Islands
9. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay  TBR
10. The Heart of Redness
11. Small Remedies


I am sad that  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time has been dropped as I loved this.  As for   A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian   and Small Island, that is no real surprise as, while I enjoyed both books, I did find them to be lighter than some of the other books on the list.


And the new ones
1. The Elegance of the Hedgehog
2. The Children’s Book
3.Invisible  read
4. American Rust
5. Cost
6. The White Tiger tbr
7. Home
8. Kieron Smith, Boy
9. The Gathering
10. The Blind Side of the Heart
11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao  tbr


I have read only one of the new books,  Invisible, which I got an advanced ready copy of through LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway  before Christmas.   I did enjoy it, though it was rather strange.  I suppose that as the 2nd edition redressed the English language bias of the original list, there will be fewer differences between future editions.  Although, I can boost my stats!