Strange Heart Beating by Eli Goldstone (Granta, £12.99)
The triggering event for this story is the bizarre death of a woman called Leda when a swan overturns her boat – a conceit of such literary naffness that it’s hard to get past. Going through her things, bereaved husband Seb finds a cache of unopened letters from her native Latvia written by a certain Olaf. Leda’s past, before she came to Britain, is a mystery to Seb and, on the basis that “I’m unlikely to find a woman to interest me more”, he flies out to find Olaf in the hope of learning about her. As a study of grief and the search for closure, Strange Heart Beating touches on many uncomfortable areas, such as the poignant truth that we can never know anybody as well as we think we do, or would like to. But there’s a bleak tone throughout this novel which often makes it hard to persevere with.
I Hate The Internet by Jarrett Kobek (Serpent’s Tail, £8.99)
This self-confessed “bad novel” calls itself fiction because its central characters, most prominently Adeline and Jeremy, are invented, but its real purpose is to rub our noses in the realities of the online world. Hovering over it in spirit is Jack Kirby, a comic book legend whose fame was no protection against getting repeatedly shafted by his industry. Kobek finds the comic book business an ideal metaphor for the tech industry as an example of “a culture soaked in sexism and racism”, as Adeline discovers when she makes the cardinal mistake of being a woman who publicly expresses an opinion. He spells out how social media merely grants the powerless an illusion of power, and how hate speech and revenge porn have become an unacknowledged source of income to tech corporations. Fearless but disturbing, this book sacrifices sacred cows on every page in a bracing, splenetic rush, but beneath the polemics is a sharp, precise dissection.
A Murder Of Crows by Ian Skewis (Unbound, £9.99)
The Glasgow author’s debut novel is an impressive thriller, strong on atmosphere and character. It follows DCI Jack Russell on his final case before retirement, investigating the disappearance of a young couple near the West Coast village of Hobbs Brae. Skewis concocts an atmosphere of freak, unsettling weather conditions which is almost supernaturally ominous and provides an apt setting for the psychological dramas in the foreground. Russell’s subordinate, DC Colin Clements, finds his boss pompous and holier-than-thou, even though he’s well aware his hatred of him is “bordering on the pathological”, and the tension between them helps energise the book. Other supporting characters are strong too, including a domineering farmer who works his son to exhaustion while constantly belittling him, a petty criminal reformed by the love of a good woman and a restaurateur who might also be a brutal killer. A Murder Of Crows is a product of crowdfunding, but is as well-written as Scottish crime novels from traditional publishers.
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