Book Reviews: Muncaster, Burke, Banville & Maxwell

Reviews of books by Harriet Muncaster, Jason Burke, John Banville & Caragh Maxwell. Covering children's books, terrorism history, crime fiction, and debut novels set in Ireland. Must-read summaries!

Muncaster’s Illustrated Chapter Books

” The jump from checking out picture books to youngsters’s stories can be a discouraging one. Thank the stars for Harriet Muncaster, whose prolific outcome of short, greatly illustrated chapter books has made her the fairy godmother of freshly independent viewers”. In a meeting with The Bookseller, Muncaster said: “I really want children to feel that if they delight in something, it does not matter what anyone assumes.”

Terrorism in the 1970s: Burke’s Account

The Revolutionists: The Tale of the Extremists That Hijacked the 1970s (The Bodley Head) is journalist Jason Burke’s background of terrorism in the 1970s, “from the German Red Army Intrigue and Japanese Red Military to the Palestinian groups Fatah and the PFLP and the Lebanese Shia extremists that developed Hezbollah”, reported Simon Sebag Montefiore in the Times. It is, he kept in mind, “an outstanding, deeply investigated, remarkable chronicle of lethal Middle Eastern conspirators and absurd western killers that is as unputdownable and alluring as it is amazing and relevant”.

The Diary of Wiska Wildflower by Harriet Muncaster (OUP), the very first in a new collection from the maker of Isadora Moon, was assessed by Emily Bearn in theTelegraph as part of a listing of “crucial” brand-new publications for more youthful visitors.

Banville’s Gothic Crime in Venice

The current historical criminal activity book from John Banville, Venetian Vespers (Faber), was evaluated in the Guardian by Marcel Theroux. Embed in Venice in 1899, Theroux noted “aspects of Henry James in the tale’s set up– the duration, the social background of its major personalities– yet Banville has actually set his program for something darker”. Theroux applauded the tale as “adeptly created … each vividly evoked moment baits to the following with a growing sense of intrigue … it’s all conveyed with a motion picture strength”. In the Times, Joan Smith evaluated Venetian Vespers as component of a criminal offense fiction round-up and declared: “The novel is a treasure of period criminal activity crossed with Gothic scary.”

Sugartown: Maxwell’s Debut Novel

Caragh Maxwell’s Sugartown (Oneworld) was chosen by Suzi Feay at the Financial Times as part of an assemble of the most effective brand-new debut stories. Saoirse has returned from London to an Ireland in the “post-Celtic Tiger financial doldrums” to move back in with her mother after a stopped working partnership.