Book 25
Dispossession by Chaz Brenchley (1996)

One of the reasons I decided to include books by my LiveJournal friends in my reading for the 50 Book Challenge was that they coincided with some books I had meant to read for quite a while. I was thinking especially of this one by desperance, which I bought eight years ago and is actually my first Brenchley novel (though I have also thoroughly enjoyed his short fiction). Another reason for choosing to blog about books by my LJ friends is that I was pretty confident I'd enjoy them unreservedly; and now that decision may come back to bite me, because I like the beginning of Dispossession more than I like the ending.

And the beginning is very good indeed. Jonty Marks is a solicitor who wakes up in a hospital bed having been in a car crash, but with no memory of the event -- or of the previous three months. What's more, in that period, he apparently left his girlfriend and met and married another woman, who is now a complete stranger to him. And Jonty, who prides himself on his honesty, now seems to be working for a major local criminal.

I love this sort of mystery (yes, I'm the kind of person who enjoys all the plot twists in programmes like Lost), and the situation only gets stranger as Jonty looks further into it. Couple that with the enthusiasm for language evident in Brenchley's prose, and Dispossession was shaping up to be a treat. And then Brenchley drops in an angel, an angel named Luke: not a 'friend' of Jonty's -- Luke isn't that kind of being -- but someone he can go to for sanctuary. Brenchley treats Luke's existence in a very matter-of-fact way: Jonty's wife knows about him, and nothing feels contrived about the way he's introduced. I had to smile at such a delightfully casual use of the imagination.

As I said, a great start to the book as far as I'm concerned. But I don't think the rest quite matches it. Essentially, I found the solution to the mystery less interesting than the mystery itself (which may be why I've written so much much more here about the latter). But I'll still be investigating Chaz Brenchley's other novels.