Darktown

Darktown
by Thomas Mullen
Published September, 2016.

Named for a seedy neighbourhood of Atlanta, Darktown opens with the attempted arrest of a local big-wig for traffic offenses. Drunk, arrogant and entitled, the driver resists arrest. So far, it's all pretty standard police-procedural fare, right? Except that the driver is white, the police officers are black and it's 1948. As Atlanta's very first African-American police, officers Boggs and Smith aren't actually allowed to arrest a white man, so their errant driver is free to go and quick to let them know in no uncertain terms just how little he thinks of their positions of "authority".

Never judge a book by its cover and all that, but how good is this one? Suitably sinister.

This is the conflict at the core of Darktown - dedicated, educated and highly capable new recruits (many of whom are recently-decorated veterans of WW2) sign up to the force in the hopes of helping their communities, only to be treated like a bad joke. Boggs, Smith and their fellow officers aren't permitted inside Police HQ - instead, they work from the basement of a run-down YMCA. They must patrol by foot, as the police vehicles are for the use of white officers only. They cannot arrest white suspects. They are forbidden from wearing their uniforms when entering or leaving the courthouse to testify, forcing them to change in a closet. The city's attitude towards the new officers ranges from bemusement to casual racism through to outright hostility and threats of violence.
When a young black woman is found dead, discarded amongst trash in a Darktown alleyway, Boggs and Smith suspect foul play. Forbidden in no uncertain terms from asking questions, the officers begin their own undercover investigation, putting their jobs - and quite possibly their lives - at serious risk.

Darktown combines a fantastically atmospheric crime noir vibe with a confronting look at race relations, violence and injustice in a fairly horrifying (and disturbingly recent) period of world history. It's a well-written, tightly-plotted detective story and this would be enough on its own for an entertaining read. The introduction of fantastic characters in the form of Boggs and Smith adds another level to the story - admirable, sympathetic, idealistic but imperfect, Boggs and Smith provide the ideal viewpoint from which to view 1940s Georgia. These are men who risked their lives to serve their country, men willing to risk their lives again to serve their community; deserving of respect and admiration they're instead belittled, harrassed and abused. It's heartbreaking.
What really sets Darktown apart though, is the setting. Author Thomas Mullen brings to the page a living, breathing,vibrant representation of 1948 Atlanta that feels so real, it's like the city itself is another character. It's grimy and dark, hopeful and violent, energised and delapidated all at once. The racial tension and social upheaval is apparent on every page, but there's also something indefinable about the Atlanta of Darktown that helps you understand why people like Boggs and Smith might give everything they have to try and save their city.

Officers Dixon, Hooks, Jones, Lyons, McKibbens, Sanders, Strickland & Elkins in April, 1948. 

Darktown is prefaced with a dedication to the memory of the eight men on whom the fictional officers are based - Claude Dixon, Willie T. Elkins, Henry Hooks, Johnnie P. Jones, Ernest Lyons, Robert McKibbens, John Sanders and Willard Strickland. These are historical figures I had never heard of before, but they're people who played an essential role in American history and they are people we should never forget. While it's ultimately a fictional detective story, Darktown does something hugely important in telling part of these men's story and reminding a modern readership of just how much they sacrificed in the hopes of making their city a better place.
This is a great read, but it's also an important story and a timely reminder of how poorly we often treat the people who least deserve it.

Sleeping Giants

Sleeping Giants
by Sylvain Neuvel
Published April, 2016

A few months back, I started listening to audiobooks based on a friend's recommendation that this might provide a good distraction on my morning commute. Suffice to say, she has created a monster. Audiobooks are amazing. With audiobooks, you can "read" while driving. You can "read" while you're cooking, or doing the dishes, or having a shower. And, while this should not be interpreted as any kind of personal confession, you could even "read" all day long at the office, when you're supposed to be working.

Some books translate particularly well to audio (Neil Gaiman reading any of his own books; Ernest Cline's Ready Player One as read by Wil Wheaton; all of Bill Bryson's books), while others don't work quite so well (books with lots of emotion and little action don't hold my attention as well as they would on the page). Then there are the audiobooks that are so fantastically good, I would even go so far as to recommend audio as a better option than reading. Marlon James' A Short History of Seven Killings is read by several different narrators with fantastic Jamaican accents - it's like listening to a really good movie, minus the visuals. Max Brooks' World War Z is written as a series of interviews with a huge number of different characters from all over the world. The audiobook's extensive cast of voice actors is absolutely perfect for this - it really does feel like the zombie war is happening all around you in full colour, right now.
Another fantastic audiobook to add to your must-listen list is Sylvain Neuvel's new novel Sleeping Giants. Written in the form of a series of reports and interviews and read by a number of difference voice actors, Sleeping Giants is absolutely ideal for the audiobook treatment.

Sleeping Giants opens with eleven-year-old Rose Franklin sneaking out at dusk to ride her new bike. Calamity strikes; Rose takes a tumble into a huge hole in the ground and finds herself - rather unexpectedly - resting in the palm of an enormous metal hand. Eventually the hand becomes part of a University of Chicago research project, headed up by the very same Rose Franklin (now a talented physicist). The hand is somewhat of a mystery - decorated with complex but mysterious symbols; weighing in at only one-tenth of what it should considering its composition; seemingly tens of thousands of years old. As Dr Franklin and her team start to uncover the secrets of the object, international tensions grow and Sleeping Giants takes its reader on a fantastic ride.

Rose Franklin and friend. No, not really.

Part sci-fi, part futuristic thriller, part political commentary, Sleeping Giants weaves together narration from a number of key characters - there's the earnest and dedicated Dr Franklin; hot-shot helicopter pilot Kara Resnik; socially awkward Quebecois linguist Vincent Couture; Resnik's squeaky-clean co-pilot Ryan Mitchell and a mysterious, unnamed man who conducts all of the interviews that make up the narrative of the novel.

It's worth mentioning that Sleeping Giants is composed entirely of log entries, interviews and mission reports. There is no action in the book whatsoever - it's all just interviews or reports from each of the characters, one at a time, slowly building a picture of events. Quite honestly, I usually hate these kinds of books. Anything in diary form or letter form or interview form - ugh. It often feels like a gimmick and personally, I struggle to become properly absorbed in anything with this kind of format.
It's a testament to Sylvain Neuvel's talent as an author that this book is compelling from the first page, with a feeling of fast-paced suspense that doesn't let up until the last page.
It's no doubt a reflection of the author's background in linguistics that Sleeping Giants is so very compelling and that each individual character takes own their own unique voice and persona very quickly, simply through the things that they say. There's no description of the characters' appearances, personalities or backgrounds - we only have their words and somehow, that's enough to form these fully fleshed-out characters. The added benefit of the audio version is that each of these characters is also voiced by a different actor, adding even more dimension and personality to the narrative.

Seriously, all just reports and interviews. Like this one. 

Not only is Sleeping Giants a fabulously constructed page-turner, it also features wonderfully three-dimensional, complex female characters. Rose Franklin is a dedicated, brilliant scientist. She didn't just luck into her job working with the giant hand; she earned it through hard work, talent and arguably a little bit of an obsession with the object she unearthed in childhood. Kara Resnik is a strong-willed, confident and skillful pilot with an distinguished record of service in the armed forces. These are not shrinking violets. They are not one-dimensional characters written only as decoration for the central male characters. They aren't there to be rescued by men. While the novel can't really pass the Bechdel test because the characters don't really talk to each other at all (remember, weird log/interview/report format?) but you can bet that Dr Franklin and Chief Warrant Officer Resnik have had plenty of conversations about all sorts of important science things, so I feel like this counts.

Sleeping Giants is Sylvain Neuvel's debut novel and was originally self-published due to a lack of interest from publishers. Now making waves internationally, with the movie rights already snapped up, it's fair to say that the book is doing very,very well (and thank god Neuvel didn't give up after a few rejection letters). The second book in the series is scheduled for release in April 2017 with a third book to follow - I'm not at all hesitant to say that I can't wait and that I'll be going the audiobook route next time, too.