Christine Mangan

Louise is running from her past. She has found a bundle of money, and Henri has been tasked with getting it back from her. As she travels across Europe, with Henri tracking her, she notices him. She goes on the offensive, sharing information with him about her past. Henri is haunted by his life as a gendarme in Algeria, and he begins to sympathize with Louise. However, the money was stolen by Louise, and the powers that be want it back. They are also in pursuit of the pair.
Henri and Louise make an unlikely pair, but I found myself rooting for them. I enjoyed the ending.… (more)

This is a cat and mouse chase of a story. Think Tom and Jerry but in slow motion, on trains moving around Europe. Henri is an ex-gendarme and Louise is a woman released from duty by the death of her father. Somehow. Louise managed to pick up the money Henri was supposed to collect for his family, they are criminals, and he then followed her on a journey around Europe thinking he was going to get the money back but not doing so.

The structure is a before and after one and so the story moves forward in one section and then back again in the next - 2 steps forward, 1 step back, which is quite clever but a little confusing for the reader. I can see how the structure zig zags to replicate the chase but this combined with the dual voiced narration complicated things for this reader.

About two thirds of the way through the story I just wanted Henri to get the money and for the situation to be resolved. I couldn't bear the thought that they would just get on another train and go somewhere else with the problem no nearer its conclusion. I did think the characters were interesting and the slow reveal of what Louise had done was engaging as were the places that they visited. It had a slight Agatha Christie feel but set in the 60s when things were just starting to loosen up a bit and a woman's role was not at home in the kitchen.

There used to be an advert for railways that said 'It's quicker by train'. Not in this book it isn't.

This is a book from my local library and so fits into the A-Z challenge where I must read a book from each letter of the alphabet without reserving it. The books must be on the shelves in my local. This one fits under M (going by author's surname).… (more)

It’s 1966, and Frances (Frankie) Croy has fled to Venice to hide. More than a decade has passed since her debut novel captured the London literary world, during which she’s published a string of failures. A particularly cutting review of her work has cast her writing style as a dinosaur whose long-deserved extinction can’t happen soon enough. A hypersensitive loner, Frankie has let that review get under her skin, believing — with some reason — that her editor shares the negative opinion.

At a publicity gathering for someone else, Frankie erupts violently, having misinterpreted postures and expressions around her as slights. The London tabloids eat this up, and Frankie just manages to avoid legal trouble. After a brief stay in a psychiatric hospital that does her no good and only spawns further gossip columns, she’s taken flight to Venice, where friends loan her a palazzo, known as the Palace of the Drowned.

As you may have guessed, Frankie is quite the paranoid. But this novel operates under the old adage that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean nobody’s after you. And much to her consternation, shortly after her arrival in Venice, a woman much younger than she accosts her, says they’ve met before, and declares herself an admirer of Frankie’s work, especially that debut novel.

Frankie’s certain she’s never met “the girl,” as she thinks of Gilly Larson (though she understands that descriptive is fast becoming déclassé) and wonders what her game is. Gilly fastens herself to Frankie like a leech, offering literary opinions she can’t seem to keep to herself, and which would appear to criticize Frankie’s work, except for that debut novel. To rephrase the adage: Just because a leech professes to like you doesn’t mean she won’t suck your blood.

So the game’s afoot, and a clever, well-crafted game it is. It’s not that Palace of the Drowned proposes a cat-and-mouse relationship between Frankie and Gilly. Rather, Frankie wonders whether that’s what they've got, or if she’s reading malign intent into innocent, if strange, behavior. Frankie goes back and forth, at times suspicious, at times grateful for Gilly’s companionship and generosity, from which she learns about the city she detested at first sight but has come to appreciate.

I like how Mangan taps into the pervasive fear belonging to people insecure in their accomplishments, especially when a seemingly more confident youngster comes along. I also like the way the narrative depicts an author fiercely anxious about her creative powers who fears she has only one thing to say and said it years ago. You don’t have to be a writer — or any form of artist — to put yourself in Frankie’s place.

That’s what saves the novel for me. The first hundred pages feel like a chore, because none of the characters appeal to me. Mangan has chosen to enact her tale with a brittle, difficult, even obnoxious cast. Frankie seems to care about no one but herself, and I don’t get why she instinctively pushes people away. Gilly’s self-righteous, intrusive, and controlling, too interested in what other people think of her to see them for themselves. Frankie’s friends, the ones who loan her the palazzo, strike poses I find tiresome, while her editor gives publishing a bad name (and makes a couple implausible moves).

Mangan’s assemblage does offer ample opportunity for conflict, therefore creating reversals, the essence of any thriller. She need not strain for plot points, because much of the story comes from within, and credibly so. You also don’t get too cozy with anyone, so you can readily believe them capable of just about anything. But if you’re like me, you cease to care, and only when Frankie’s vulnerabilities feel at all human, rather than merely repellent, do I latch on.

Whether Palace of the Drowned will please you probably depends on your tolerance for its characters. Mangan’s a gifted author, and her psychological portrayals ring true. Yet this book is too cold for me to embrace.… (more)