Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
BOOK OF THE WEEK with Linda Jennings. I HID MY VOICE, Saniee Parinouth, ISBN 9781408707500 (ABACUS)
BD4.400 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members
This is the story, based on fact, of a boy who couldn’t speak until the age of seven. Now 20, he describes the events of his life.
Four-year-old Shahaab has not started talking. The family doctor believes there is no cause for concern; nevertheless, Shahaab is ridiculed by others who call him ‘dumb’. Young Shahaab doesn’t understand what the word means and thinks it is a compliment, until one day his cousin plays a trick on him to prove to everyone that the boy truly is the neighbourhood idiot.
When his mother recounts the incident to her husband, Shahaab is crushed to learn that his father also thinks the boy’s speech impediment indicates that his son is an idiot and thus brings shame on the family.
Shahaab soon recognises that his father’s love and esteem is concentrated on his older brother, Arash, and his younger sister, Shadee. In his innocent and deeply hurt child’s mind, he begins to believe that the ‘good’ and ‘intelligent’ children like his older brother are their fathers’ sons. On the other hand, children like him who are ‘clumsy’ and ‘problematic’ are their mothers’ sons. From that moment on, his world, which he thought was filled with beauty and kindness, suddenly turns harsh, full of anger and insult. He begins to lash out, taking childish revenge on those around him, encouraged by his two imaginary friends, Esi and Bibi.
No one in the family can understand Shahaab’s wild behaviour except his maternal grandmother, who seems to possess the understanding and the kindness he so desperately craves. Their growing bond leads to a deep friendship in which Shahaab is able to experience some happiness and finally find his voice.
This is a richly written novel with which Parinoush Saniee digs into the social texture of her country, Iran, and which, while telling the story of the struggles of a boy, also portrays the life the women there.
READ IT NOW
THE TRESPASSER, Tana French, Isbn 9781444755664 (HODDER)
BD3.900 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members
Winner of the Irish Book Awards Crime Fiction Book of the Year.
This is ‘one of the best crime writers working today’ according to the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
Being on the Dublin Murder squad is nothing like Detective Antoinette Conway dreamed. Her working life is a stream of thankless cases and harassment. Antoinette is tough, but she’s getting close to the breaking point.
The new case looks like a regular lovers’ quarrel gone bad. Aislinn Murray is blond, pretty and lying dead next to a table set for a romantic dinner. There’s nothing unusual about her - except that Antoinette has seen her somewhere before.
And her death won’t stay neat. Other detectives want her to arrest Aislinn’s boyfriend, fast. There’s a shadowy figure at the end of Antoinette’s road. And everything they find out about Aislinn takes her further from the simple woman she seemed to be.
Antoinette knows the harassment has turned her paranoid, but she can’t tell just how far gone she is. Is this the case that will make her career - or break it?
You can beat a murderer … but you can’t beat your whole team.
My favourite
read of the week
MAGPIE MURDERS, Anthony Horowitz, Isbn 9781409159445 (ORION) BD4.400 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members
When editor Susan Ryeland is given the tattered manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has little idea it will change her life. She’s worked with the revered crime writer for years and his detective, Atticus Pund, is renowned for solving crimes in the sleepy English villages of the 1950s. As Susan knows only too well, vintage crime sells handsomely. It’s just a shame that it means dealing with an author like Alan Conway.
But Conway’s latest tale of murder at Pye Hall is not quite what it seems. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but hidden in the pages of the manuscript there lies another story: a tale written between the very words on the page, telling of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition and murder.
From Sunday Times bestseller Anthony Horowitz comes Magpie Murders, his deliciously dark take on the vintage crime novel, brought bang-up-to-date with a fiendish modern twist.
