True Murder - Yaba Badoe

True Murder is an enthralling debut which cracks and fizzes with an atmosphere of childhood. It is tense, excitable, fantastical, and all the time given to misconception, exaggeration, and drama. Ajuba is a young Ghanaian girl just starting out at an English boarding school. Her childhood has been fraught with chaos: her father’s promiscuity, the breakdown of her parents marriage, her mothers growing paranoia, escape from Ghana to London, her mother’s drug overdose. And now, having called the ambulance and saved her mother, Ajuba has been whisked away to live at a boarding school. It’s a lot for one child to go through.

Yet boarding school promises to offer her a period of normality. There are other girls her age, and she is a good student. But when Polly Venus, a Generation X preteen, full of attitude and bravado, arrives at the school, things become a whole lot more interesting. Soon Ajuba fallen under Polly’s spell and the two become inseparable. And when Polly invites Ajuba to come home with her for the weekend, Ajuba is delighted to find that the Venus’s are every bit as exuberant and passionate as their daughter. Soon she is spending all her time there, as though they are her surrogate family, so much more fun and loving than her real family.

But when the girls are playing in the attic one day, they find some bones wrapped in an old coat. Thinking they are those of a dead kitten, they call the RSPCA, only to be told that the bones are actually those of a baby. Already obsessed with the detectives of an American magazine serial True Murder, and with their wild imaginations in overdrive, the girls set out to unravel the mystery and solve the crime. But things are not as they seem; there are fault lines appearing in Venus household, Ajuba is troubled by her mothers absence, and the detective games are digging up mysteries that are better left unknown. As the summer draws to a close, all three mysteries come together, with tragic results.

Yaba Baoe is a consummate storyteller: the pace and guile with which she delivers this tragic tale of childhood fantasy gone wrong draws you in and surrounds your every sense. Already a successful filmmaker, Baoe writes with a cinematic eye for tension, and a full pallet of visual imagery. The characters come alive before you; with every turn of the page you anticipate something good, and get something better. And all the while, the tension is growing hotter. Something is about to snap…

True Murder is simply written, plot-based and enticing. It occupies that fine line between exciting and lyrical literary fiction, and mainstream popularity. I am not a big fan of childhood recollection fiction, but this is so well written and characterised that it is a sheer pleasure to read. It may not quite have the astounding gothic background or literary genius of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, but there is something similar here. The prose is thick, it enfolds you in the action, you forget where you are and find time has passed without your notice.

Ajuba is a sympathetic, intriguing, and likable narrator and her friendship with double act with Polly completely steals the show. Yet there are another four or five very strong characters in their own rights, who think interesting and diverse thoughts, and who have their own issues and worries which they are trying to work out for themselves. At every point I felt present and a part of the action. In vacillating between a very English setting of the school and Ajuba’s magical, colourful, and exotic Ghanaian background, the reader feels her cross-cultural confusion. This is a novel of cultures colliding inside one girls mind, and the confusion that a young child can make of such big issues.

There are, however, problems with this novel. The strange and confusing tense shifts fail to build the tension as they intend; I am unsure how Polly’s family can afford their magnificent new house; the ending is a little confusing. But overall the plot is engrossing, and Ajuba is such an enthralling narrator that you do not notice anything outside the story taking place before your eyes. There are many layers of mystery, many different plot lines which you feel tugging you onwards toward their dramatic conclusions.

There will be few debut novels published in 2009 more accomplished and enjoyable as True Murder.

6.5 out of 10

So, that was the week that was

Aravind Adiga is the third debut novelist to win the Booker Prize, David Guterson is one of the most confident ublic speakers I have heard, and Geraldine Brooks is a thoroughly lovely person.

These are just three of the lessons I have learned this week. It's been a busy one, so busy in fact that I completely forgot that the Booker winner was to be announced on Tuesday. I guess that says something about my feelings towards the shortlist: how Joseph O'Neill and Salman Rushdie were excluded I have no idea. But without having read the whole book, I have to declare myself delighted with the result. I mean, who wanted another depressing Irish author to win (particularly since the last two were so awful), or one of the two 800 page monsters? Sure it would have been nice if Linda Grant had won since she was at our Literary festival back in March promoting the book, but to my mind, a little political controversy in a proper story makes The White Tiger a worthy winner, though from an admittedly poor bunch. Whisper it quietly, but perhaps the judges will have chosen a book that people might actually enjoy for a change. Its been about 6 years since that last happened. And as a bookseller, that's a nice thing to see.

But if the Booker was overlooked this week for me, it was because we had two literary events from accross the pond within the space of 4 days. First up, David Guterson, who I have to admit to thinking was Canadian. But no. As with many writers, he was once upon a time a teacher, and he certainly must have been a confident one. He was fascinating, able to discuss almost any subject thrown at him confidently and coherently without even a pause to think. I was impressed, though left with a niggling thought that he ust have been a difficult teacher to have. I mean, how would you get a word in edgeways? And, thanks to the infinite benevolence of the top brass at Waterstone's, I think I shall spend some of my free £15 gift voucher, on a nice signed copy of Snow Falling on Cedars.

As a quick aside, I am pleased to note that Waterstone's seems to be moving rapidly in the right direction. For the first time, I have the impression that it is a company with a philosophy I can buy into. (but more of that soon).

Thursday saw Geraldine Brooks night. It is unusual to have female writers in this autumn series, I don't think Chris like to interview them, but it is nice to see a change in tempo (and the punters seemed to appreciate it, we sold more books than for any other author so far this series). She did a little slide talk about the background to the writing of her latest book, and then sat down to the interview. As a former foreign correspondent, she is a conemporary of Kate Adie, though that is where the similarities end. As she noted, sometimes the best way to get somewhere, is by being small and unthreatening. Under her small and sweet exterior, she was clearly a really tough cookie. And, most importantly in my opinion, she seemed a thoroughly lovely woman. Its just a shame she had to get home so that her husband could go out and campaign for Mr. Obama.

So that was the week that was. I also had to read a bland and slightly pointless (though undoubtedly well written) book for Books Quarterly. Why do I keep getting these short, supposedly funny novels? What have I ever done to give the impression that these are the sort of books I like? I don't know. But, despite some positive reviews on amazon.com, I don't think Poe Ballantine's first novel, God Clobbers Us All, is likely to make great waves on this side of the Atlantic. I am now just starting on a book which has been a huge hit in Canada this year, Gil Adamson's The Outlander. It is the third book to be released in 2009 that i have read so far. So far, True Murder by Yaba Badoe was pretty good, God Clobbers Us All, less so. If anything in 2009 equals Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, then i'll be a pretty happy reader.

At last count, i think it is 14 books from 2008 I have read so far. But will I make 52 books for the year? We''ll have to see on January 1st.