Triffids Beard 2 - The Bearded Triffid

few months ago and complained that I couldn't find two of them. Well now I'm only missing one. It's my
birthday in March and if anyone wants to give me The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter I'll love you
forever.
I must admit that Peggy lacks some of the magic of the other Appalachian novels. The hint of mysticism
that lifted those others out of the ranks of simple mysteries is missing here. Peggy is just an ordinary
detective novel; though beautifully written and atmospheric.
Peggy Muryan, a 1960s folk singer moves to a small Tennessee town seeking solitude and a career
comeback. Her idyll is shattered when she receives a seemingly threatening message from a man long
believed to have died in Vietnam. Then a local girl, who looks very like Peggy looked in the 1960s when
she was singing her protest songs, is killed. This is the latest in a line of killings all of which seem to have
a Vietnam connection. The whole novel, though it is set in the 1990s, is bound in time and it belongs
more to the mood of thirty years ago than it does to today. If like me you are a child of the sixties then
the appeal of this novel (if only for the sake of nostalgia) will be enormous. But I suspect those of a later
generation will find the book less moving than I did. It's just history and perhaps it has no impact if you
weren't there at the time.
The peace movement was international. Countries began to seem less important in the 1960s -- old
fashioned institutions. I had (and have) much more in common with my world-wide generation than with
my government. Patriotism died with my contemporaries. It may subsequently have revived -- I regard
this as sad. We ended a war and deposed two presidents; not a bad record. We were the generation
who were so sure of ourselves. "Give us the world," we demanded. "We know how to run it equably,
how to solve its problems." Of course that was thirty years ago, and eventually they DID give us the
world. We really are in charge today, and we have proved to be no more capable than any other
generation. Our answers and our certainties dissolved. That's why this book sings. It understands all
that.
Incidentally, I guessed who did the killings and why about half way through the book, but that didn't
affect my enjoyment of it one little bit. Despite the surface resemblance, it isn't really a whodunit at all.
Noted humourist Stephen Fry has written a serious novel. Making History is a science fiction novel
which examines the alternate time track that eventuates when, with the aid of an ingenious machine, two
of our contemporaries prevent the birth of Adolf Hitler. To us old, jaded SF fans there is nothing very
revolutionary about this idea (though I bet it will really scroll the knurd of the literati when they fawn over
the book. "So ingenious", they will murmur languidly). Actually, clichéd concepts aside, Fry really has
done a remarkably good job with the premise. The book is constantly fascinating and innovative with
several well planted stings in its tail. I found it convincing, enthralling and beautifully written (and also
immaculately researched; the wealth of historical detail was astonishing). What more do you want, for
heaven's sake?
I bought a new suit before Christmas and it was slightly too large, as these things sometimes are. But
now, after my month long holiday, it fits perfectly. Perhaps it shrank in the heat?
Patrick O'Brian The Yellow Admiral Norton
The Golden Ocean Harper Collins
Dava Sobel Longitude Fourth Estate
Stephen Baxter Voyager Harper Prism
Buzz Aldrin & John Barnes Encounter with Tiber NEL
Carl Hiaasen Native Tongue Pan
Double Whammy
Stormy Weather
Shaun Hutson Relics Warner
Spawn Sphere
Assassin Warner