Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield: Book Review

If I’ve taken my time to get round to reviewing Once Upon A River, it’s because I don’t know quite how to approach what must be up there with the best books I’ve read this year. 

These days I don’t read much literary fiction and haven’t read anything by Diane Setterfield, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. The story begins at some point in the late nineteenth century, in the Swan Inn on the River Thames. It’s winter and the regulars are sitting telling stories when and injured man staggers in and collapses — and he’s carrying a drowned child. 

The man survives and the little girl turns out not to be drowned but that’s the beginning of the mystery. The child can’t be identified and there are three families who are, or claim to be, missing a daughter of that age. The wealthy Vaughans lost their daughter, Amelia, to a kidnapper and she was never returned. Little Alice went missing when her mother committed suicide, and housekeeper Lily is improbably convinced that the girl is her little sister, Anne. That’s the plot, but it’s so much more complicated than that. And it’s a tale made wonderful by the telling. 

I’m a sucker for a proper setting, for a book that’s bedded into its landscape, and this book follows the river. All the families are tied to it. It gives and it takes away, a constant presence and a constant risk. The book is peopled by a multitude of characters, far too many to mention individually, but every one of them is believable and their lives are woven together.

Diane Setterfield tells a tale that twists and turns like the river itself, revealing secrets and surprises at every turn and leading to a satisfying conclusion. The real lives are woven with the folklore of the river and the ever-present spectre of Quietly, the boatman who appears to those who fall into the river, taking those whose time has come to the darkness of the river and returning those who aren’t ready to die to the safety of the bank. 

Once Upon A River is a compelling, moving book, and I absolutely loved it. 

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Death of a Radical by Rebecca Jenkins: Book Review

Death of a Radical is the second book in Rebecca Jenkins’s series of historical crime novels featuring Raif Jarrett, agent to the Duke of Penrith and veteran of the Peninsular War. I read and (on the whole) enjoyed the first one, certainly enough to want to persist with more of the same.

The second book has pretty much the same flaws as the first, plus an additional weakness and an additional strength, which leaves me ready to give a third book in the series a try though I won't be putting publication date in my diary. Jenkins writes well (overlooking the short sentences and head hopping, which are my pet peeves but not necessarily bad in themselves) and I think she knows it. The problem is that she doesn’t have the balance right. The book feels more about the writing than anything else and as a result, the action is obscured.

In a mystery the plot is crucial and the writing should enhance it, not obscure it. In this book there there were several occasions when I had to go back and reread a scene because I wasn’t sure exactly what happened — something I occasionally do if I’m tired and reading late at night, but don’t expect to do repeatedly when I’m reading of an afternoon. For me that blunted the excitement that the book ought to have, and made it quite a slow read — something that was amplified by the unnecessarily detailed descriptions of everything from the weather down to the colour of a lady’s ribbons. It was a nice enough read, I suppose — but I wanted more action from a book that sets itself out as a mystery.

Stripping away the writing leaves the plot a little bit exposed and this is the weakness that the first book didn’t have. The whole thing never quite held up for me: I would give examples, but can’t because of the risk of spoilers, though I can say that the connection between the various murders was never quite strong enough for me, and nor did I really understand exactly what the killings were all about. Again, it may be in there but I couldn’t find it under the elegant prose. (Sometimes there’s a value in plain speaking.) There seemed to be a lot of scenes which didn’t pull their weight in terms of advancing the story — something else which slowed the pace and made the book drag — although when Raif finally decided to take action, he did so dramatically and the conclusion was satisfying.

This feels a slightly mean-spirited review, so I’ll redress the balance with what I did like — the characters. I love the way Jenkins has set up the whole series. Raif is complex and fascinating, ideal protagonist material (even if he does spend rather too much time standing around not doing a lot) and his relationships with Charles, the Duke’s son and with Henrietta Lonsdale are nicely drawn. All the minor characters are fascinating, too, although perhaps we don’t need to see quite as much of all of them as we do in the book.

I don’t like giving stars and this book illustrates why. Do I rate it for its obvious qualities, or do I rate it for how I felt about it? I did like it, but at the same time I struggled to get through. Jenkins has created a wonderful set of characters who seem desperate to be set free from the weight of her description and allowed to act. It’s a good book, and well-written. As literary fiction it would be terrific, but somehow, as a mystery, it doesn’t quite deliver.

Thanks to Sapere Books and Netgalley for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.