Reading for pleasure

Jaochim B Schmidt (trans. Jamie Lee Searle) (Bitter Lemon Press: £8.99; e-book £7.99)

Kalmann Ódinsson, the narrator and central character, is not as other 34 year old men. He is definitely on the spectrum. He becomes very distressed if someone is occupying his usual table when he goes for a burger. His habitual outfit of a cowboy hat, star and wartime pistol in a holster, lead some to call him the Sheriff of Raufarhӧfn. Others simply refer to him as the village idiot. Yet inside Kalmann’s head there is much going on: folk wisdom, practical skills and good sense taught to him by his grandfather.

The old man is now in a home suffering from dementia, but Kalmann has taken over the boat, and plies his trade as a shark fisherman and manufacturer of hákarl, the fermented shark beloved of Icelanders. The best on the island, so they say.

Kalmann also hunts Arctic foxes. On one such trip he comes on a pool of blood in the snow, just after local businessman Róbert McKenzie is reported missing. Everyone has their own ideas. Kalmann’s theory that a polar bear might be involved just adds to the derision directed at him. There are no polar bears in Iceland.

Then Magga, a near neighbour and acquaintance who gives Kalmann a weekly lift to visit his grandfather, is found dead on her kitchen floor. At first the police seem to be sympathetic, but attitudes harden. Kalmann’s only friend is the shadowy Nói, whom he meets online but whose face he never sees. Schmidt uses the exchanges between the two to throw more ideas about the murderer into the mix. We are also party to a lot of Kalmann’s own thoughts, which point to a darker conclusion.

A box of marijuana is found in the sea. Before we know it, armed police are involved and matters become more serious. We begin to form our own conclusions. Well I did, and I think that’s what Mr Schmidt intended me to do. Do we get it right? No we do not. Unkind children in Raufarhӧfn used to dub Kalmann, Forrest Gump. The Forrest Gump story took many twists. So too does this book. Beautifully written, empathetic and thoroughly readable.

Andrew M Hadjucki QC (Anoetica Publishing: £12)

Well, thank you, Mr Review Editor. Another debut novel from a lawyer. Never my favourite. Nor is it encouraging to learn that it was written over 20 years ago. It’s rare for a first novel to come out posthumously – I didn’t know that Andrew, an eminent Scottish QC, had died – but then we learn that the publishing company is owned by his son.

My irritation mounted at the inconsistencies and errors. The cover notes say that it is set at the turn of the millennium; however, we swiftly discover that the central character’s cousin had died 40 years earlier, in 1974. That in turn throws into doubt some of the actings of various dramatis personae, inconsistent with the age they must have been. Then you start to focus on the other mistakes. An aunt’s horrible mustard coloured Volvo changes into a VW, then back to a Volvo. Typos abound. Some of these are so obvious, e.g. "coffiured" instead of "coiffured", it’s clear that no one has even used a spellchecker.

But then the clouds seem to clear, and one is sucked into the story. As a teenager, Christopher Kingston (spelled Kingstone in the cover notes and the publisher’s introduction) discovers the body of his cousin April. Accidental death, according to the inquest. A posthumous note from the girl’s father suggests he believes April to have been murdered. His last wish to Christopher is to investigate.

The quest takes Christopher back to his native Merseyside. It is so beautifully evoked that you suspect the author to have been a Liverpudlian. (He wasn’t.) Unlike most new authors, Andrew is comfortable with dialogue, which flows easily. The plot is carefully unpeeled, onion skin like, and with a twist at the end.

There are a few pithy comments on our profession. For example, “the self importance of a lawyer is measured by the width of the pinstripes on his suit”. Or, “I was probably not the only lawyer who was a romantic rationalist nor for that matter the only one whose daughter could not take them seriously. But then… the more convinced I was that there were few romantic colleagues of mine and even fewer rational ones at that.”

In summary, then, a well structured novel, a sound plot, decent characterisation and good dialogue. In spite of my early reservations, I thoroughly enjoyed it.