Plus X
by Eric Frank Russell, Astounding Science Fiction (June, 1956)
collected in “4 for the Future” ed. Groff Conklin (Pyramid, 1959), pp. 108-160.
Russell’s impish SF novella pits a lone POW caught deep behind enemy lines, armed with nothing but his wits (and thence an imaginary co-conspirator!), against the entire alien war effort. Leeming’s captors might be a tad credulous but this is terrific fun.
Looking for Alibrandi
by Melina Marchetta (Penguin, 1992); audiobook read by Marcella Russo (Bolinda, 2010)
YA exploration of identity and belonging, told from the perspective of a third-generation Italian Australian. The title is apt, as the destination Marchetta has her protagonist arrive at (eschewing more obvious plot lines/resolutions), is the simple need and resolve to keep searching.
Star Wars: Dark Force Rising
by Timothy Zahn (Bantam, 1992)
audiobook read by Marc Thompson (Random House Audio, 2012)
Very much the middle book of a trilogy, but like The Empire Strikes Back it makes the most of its narrative obligations. The Katana fleet looms large throughout, though apparently has been hauled off en masse by the Empire’s fast-working, prescient tugboats.
The Shape of Water
by Andrea Camilleri (Sellerio, 1994); trans. Stephen Sartarelli
audiobook read by Mark Meadows (Macmillan, 2017)
Camilleri plunges the reader into a murder mystery predicated on the intricacies of Sicilian politics and social power dynamics. While the protagonist (Inspector Montalbano) and setting prove ripe for TV adaptation, the investigation in written form rather pales in comparison, retrospectively judged.
Ask a Policeman
by The Detection Club (Arthur Baker, 1933)
aka John Rhode, Helen de Guerry Simpson, Gladys Mitchell, Anthony Berkeley, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Milward Kennedy
audiobook read by David Timson (Lamplight, 2020)
A fix-up murder mystery where famous detective novelists swap protagonists and one-up themselves providing different investigations of/solutions to the same crime. Intended as a parody, supposedly, but all very self-indulgent and neither humorous nor engaging—more an increasingly turgid raking of minutiae.
The Third Policeman
by Flann O’Brien (MacGibbon & Kee, 1967)
audiobook read by Jim Norton (Naxos, 2009)
Pseudo-droll, faux-profound. It is perhaps fitting that O’Brien’s so-called classic absurdist novel wasn’t accepted for publication until after his death. The ending and its implications do somewhat justify the preceding gallimaufry, yet would just as effectively have tied off a short story.
The Man in the Queue
by Josephine Tey (Methuen, 1929)
audiobook read by Stefan Rudnicki (Blackstone, 2025)
An odd mystery, relying on regular policework to identify a suspect, uncommon coincidence to cast doubt on his guilt, and then an out-of-the-blue confession to solve the case. Inspector Grant is a cerebral, rather literary protagonist, present and involved from the outset.
Brain Wave
by Poul Anderson (Ballantine, 1954)
audiobook read by Tom Weiner (Blackstone, 2011)
Old-school SF ‘what if?’ story, imagining the (near-catastrophic) consequences of a world-wide boost to intelligence. Weiner’s audiobook reading goes some way towards bestowing neglected characterisation, but for the most part this is a thought experiment explored woodenly by Anderson through third-person marionettes.
The Brain Sharpeners Abroad
by Philip Curtis; ill. Tony Ross (Andersen, 1987)
Class 8’s exchange visit to Germany offers some originality, yet the Brain Sharpeners have become woefully ineffective, their hold over the students as tenuous as a repressed sneeze. Re plans to thwart them, Curtis is clearly making it up as he goes.
An Author Bites the Dust
by Arthur W. Upfield (Doubleday & Co., 1948)
audiobook read by Peter Hosking (Bolinda, 2010)
Bony is particularly energetic this case, the Yarra Valley setting rendering his bushcraft less germane than a bonhomous interest in people and his knack for pursuing odd, imaginative lines of inquiry. Miss Pinkney and Mr Pickwick provide charming evidence of Upfield’s popularism.