Morse, Lewis, Endeavour and Oxford
John Mair, Richard Keeble & Heidi Rickard (eds)
Pint-Sized Books, £14.99
There have been 33 episodes each of Morse, Lewis and Endeavour and here's a comprehensive exploration of their Oxford setting. We get, inter alia, a walking-tour guide in eight stops in central Oxford, an insight into Colin Dexter (the writer who created Morse), an examination of Morse's credentials as a policeman, a comparison between the "late Morse" and the "early Endeavour", and a consideration of whether Oxford has exploited its connections with the highly successful TV series sufficiently. That Morse's detective credentials are analysed by a former chief constable of his force and by a retired Oxford detective inspector makes the analysis all the more authentic. How an academic contributor can find the younger Morse (Endeavour) superior to the older bewildered this reviewer but didn't detract from this wonderful read. – Brian Maye
Ghosts of Spring
By Luis Carrasco
époque press, £8.99
In a bleak mid-winter in the city, an anonymous girl sleeps rough. She hustles for food, finding shelter wherever she can, a carefully stashed cardboard mat her own piece of real estate. The narrative is bone-clean, the present tense pulling the reader along with the unnamed girl as she measures out her life in teaspoons. She is in a cast of the lost, the adrift, the broken and the desperate; her only friends are Suni and Cam, sex-workers who are plummeting into dangerous waters. The bitterness of survival is gradually transformed when she leaves Gloucester for the more tender surroundings of a Cotswold village; there she is touched by the grace of strangers, by possibility and kindness. A deft, arresting novel about the vicissitudes of circumstance, laced with hope, written with elegance and warmth. – Ruth McKee
A Terrible Kindness
By Jo Browning Wroe
Faber, £14.99
A Terrible Kindness follows the life of a young embalmer, William Lavery. Immediately upon qualifying at 19, he volunteers for the traumatic task of embalming the children who died in Aberfan (the Welsh village whose school was destroyed by rain-loosened mining waste in 1966). Interwoven is a story recounting William's schoolboy days as a Cambridge chorister, ending in an experience that, again, leaves him traumatised. The storylines culminate in the crisis of William's present, in which he's a scared, broken man unable to move on. Although the scaffolding of learned "creative writing" is sometimes apparent, and the dialogue occasionally hammy, these elements are undercut by many moments of genuine pathos. This will prove ideal reading for Richard Osman fans (and anyone secretly intrigued by embalming). – Lucy Sweeney Byrne
Ireland (1913)
By Richard Bermann
Cork University Press, €29
Richard Bermann, a prominent and much-travelled Austro-German journalist of the early 20th century, visited Ireland in 1913 and the account he wrote is here translated and edited by Dr Leesa Wheatley and Prof Florian Krobb. There was great German interest at the time in understanding the backyard (Ireland) of the world's leading imperial power (Britain). Bermann sought to satisfy that interest but in a way quite unlike much previous German writing on Ireland. He combines historical excursions, essays on literature, ballads and fairytales, interviews, anecdotes and extracts from standard guidebooks. His approach is light-hearted, self-deprecating, varied and perceptive and "is imbued with the striking dichotomy between the particular and the global, the distinct and the uniform", as he captures a glimpse of a country on the brink of momentous change. – Brian Maye
Someone Has to Die for This
Derek Molyneux & Darren Kelly (eds)
Mercier, €19.99
The fourth in a series detailing the violent independence struggle in Dublin from 1916-1922, this covers from Bloody Sunday 1920 to the truce in July 1921. It was the most intense and frenetic phase of the War of Independence. Bloody Sunday and its aftermath's events are given in graphic detail and with clear insight, as are the escalating intelligence battle, the creation of Active Service Units on the Irish side, the increasing ferocity of attacks and reprisals, and the prison escapes and Mountjoy hangings. All the while, peace overtures proceed in the background. The story is told through the eyes of those at the struggle's forefront: the citizen soldiers and their leaders (many remarkably young), whose determination ultimately wore down the British political and military establishments' resistance. – Brian Maye
Trinity Tales
Sorcha Pollak & Katie Dickson (eds)
Lilliput, €20
This is the fifth and final volume in a series that began with the 1960s, this one covering 2000-2010. In it, Trinity College Dublin graduates reflect on their time there. The early 2000s saw growing widespread use of technology, especially mobile phones and laptops, the birth of social media and economic boom and bust. The book's a "fusion of voices – male, female, black, white, gay, straight, middle-class, working-class, Irish, Nigerian, Welsh, Iraqi, Canadian". They all bring their different perspectives and experiences to bear, very openly and honestly, as they reflect on how their backgrounds (mixed-race or drug-addicted parents, for example) promoted or retarded their student lives. Katriona O'Sullivan's piece is deeply moving and Jonathan Schachter's wry humour is catching among the very diverse contributions, notable for their individuality. – Brian Maye
