Books in September 2020

This has been a strange month; I haven't really had the appetite for fiction since my mother died on the 9th of September, but I have read several RPGs cover to cover. I just haven't wanted to settle into the comfort of a novel. Some of the RPGs have already appeared as 'First Impressions' posts, and others will follow as I get to them. 

I've also started working through William Dalrymple's 'The Anarchy', which is a history of the British East India Company, using a mixture of Audible and Kindle to work through it. It's a pretty shocking story of the realities of empire-building and throws into horrible relief on how the present crop of politicians who hark back to the British Empire appears not to understand on what it was built. If they do, they're delusional that we could reclaim that position of influence as a nation.

Anyway, the one fiction book I managed was 'Meddling Kids', which I enjoyed greatly.

Meddling Kids (Edgar Cantero)

This was enjoyable; it is a very knowing mash-up of Scooby-Doo, the Famous Five and Lovecraft. The set up is that a group of young adults come back together to solve a mystery from their past. In the late 1970s, they'd formed the 'Blyton Summer Detective Club' and solved a number of cases when they were eleven and twelve. However, the ending of the final case had never seemed quite right, and -when the criminal who they had caught was released thirteen years later is released - one of the Club decides to get everyone together. All the club member's lives had not taken the route that they'd planned, and this is a chance at redemption.

The writing is clever and often breaks through the fourth wall. It wears its influences with pride and is quite funny in parts. I was surprised to find out that it is a translation from Spanish. These elements lift it up from the humdrum; had they not been there, I wouldn't have enjoyed the book so much. Enjoyable.

2 October 2020