Diogo Girondi Girondi itibaren Doğanlı Köyü, 58500 Doğanlı Köyü/Yıldızeli/Sivas, ตุรกี itibaren Doğanlı Köyü, 58500 Doğanlı Köyü/Yıldızeli/Sivas, ตุรกี

Disappointed in Jon Cleary on this one. Not as good as his Scobie Malone series and other books I have read by him.

I want to like this, but overall it tries to cover too much ground in too few pages. The end result is that everything, save the NPC summaries, comes off as far too superficial. (And what's up with the Templar obsession? Far too many of the plot suggestions boil down to "Group X trying to find lost Templar treasure".)

A lot of people loved Double Act by Jacqueline Wilson. Regarded by many as being one of her better written titles, it's still popular nearly twenty years after it was first published. In fact, I've seen a lot of people lately clamouring for a sequel. "What,' they ask, "happened to the twins afterwards?" But as for me, I don't want to know. I'm not interested in a Double Act sequel, for one perfectly good reason. Ruby will probably end up dead. After you've finished reading that sentence a few times (and no, you're not seeing things,) allow me to explain. I always thought the point of Double Act was that the prospective step-mother, Rose, is A Nice Person After All, and that that was what the reader was supposed to discover along the way with the twins. But upon reading it again as an adult, I find out that I am Wrong. Very, very wrong. Wilson is a genius of a kind very few have seen this generation. Why this book didn't win the Pulitzer I will never know. This is one of the great thrillers of the 20th century - you just have to be an adult to see it. Actually, speaking as an adult, it's much easier to see what a complete and utter piece of shit the father is, too. Richard - no doubt named so for being a prize dick - is one of the most selfish parents in the Wilson-verse. His form of selfishness is just a bit more subtle than the likes of Sue from Diamond Girls, or Tracy Beaker's mum Carly. Throughout the entire book it's clear that Richard is going through a sort-of early-onset mid-life crisis. From the beginning we learn that he spends his time filling the entire house with books, knowing full well that his mother-in-law has arthritis and finds it hard to get around. He brings a prospective girlfriend home without even bothering to discuss it with his daughters first (daughters who traumatically lost their mother three years previously). He then goes on to buy a shop, not thinking to take his daughters to see it first, or to even ask their opinion on a matter that has everything to do with them and will probably affect them the most. If you weren't already in awe of his selfishness, he even manages to dump his mother-in-law - who spent the last three years raising his kids for him - into sheltered accommodation. Alone. What a prick. So what causes this change? Obviously Richard is entirely responsible for his own prickish behaviour, but the catalyst is Rose, his slightly dotty new lady-friend who sells bric-a-brac. That kind of says it all, really. If Richard is one of Wilson's more subtle crap parents, Rose is an even subtler villain. After gaining entry into Richard's life, she proceeds to leave her mark on him by changing the way he dresses, buying him crazy new clothes and throwing out his old ones. She even starts to call him Rick, a name no one has ever called him before and is done, no doubt, in order to feed into his mid-life crisis. Rose, it's called 'enabling', and it doesn't help. Phase one of the plan is an immediate success, as Richard is made redundant because of the ridiculous clothing Rose bought him, which no doubt alerted the rest of the office loud and clear that this man was going through a mid-life crisis. Now that Richard is unemployed, she's able to plant the idea of the bookshop into his head, thus leading to phase two - prising him away from the clutches of his mother-in-law. She then isolates him in the countryside. Not only that, but as they both live and work at the shop together, she can keep an eye on him all day. Rose has already performed an amazing feat. She's got her man, defeated a powerful rival, and dragged her prize into the wilderness. It would all be perfect if it weren't for those pesky twins. After finding out that passive acceptance of their antics doesn't go very far in winning them over, she uses her numerable wits to surmise that the best way to defeat them is to divide and conquer. The twins have a row early on in the book, and Rose tempts Garnet downstairs with a kids movie and chocolate. She's no doubt figured out that Garnet is the weaker twin, more easily influenced and taken in. However, the twins make up and her plan is, for now, spoiled. So then fate throws her another chance, and her Guardian newspaper has an advertisement for identical twin girls to audition for a TV show. She leaves it lying on the kitchen table innocently, knowing that Ruby in particular is likely to grab at it. If the twins become TV actors, they'll spend a good chunk of the summer holidays away filming, which will act as a temporary measure until she figures out how to get rid of them permanently. She encourages them when Ruby announces her plan to go to the audition with Garnet, only it is Richard who foils everything this time. First, he says he won't allow them to become actors - incidentally, not because he doesn't want his kids exposed to the cut-throat world of showbiz, but because he 'can't stand showy-off child stars', which would no doubt deplete all his recently racked up street cred. When the twins run off to the audition on their own, he gets there just in time to put a spanner in the works. Drat. But finally, Rose is rewarded for her patience. And it is the girls themselves who rescue her plans from the abyss. Hoist by their twin petards! After applying for a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school, Garnet is accepted, Ruby is not, and the sisters' relationship is irrevocably altered. Rose encourages Garnet to go from the very beginning, knowing full well that she's stirring the pot between the sisters. Once Garnet has left for Marnock Heights, only Ruby remains. The last we see of them, Ruby and Rose have formed a truce, in which Rose takes Ruby to a drama club on Saturday mornings while she goes shopping. Things are left off here and for good reason; if Rose suggests palming Ruby off to a stage school, even the self-absorbed Richard may start to notice something. There are only two choices left to Rose: frame Ruby for murder and have her locked away in Borstal, or just up and kill her. As the first could lead to a revenge attack involving the twins switching places during a prison visit sometime in a blissfully unaware future, the second option is tidier and ties up all loose ends. After all, Richard won't mind losing Ruby once he sees the new Harley Rose has bought him. And hell, he still has Garnet. Twins are pretty much the same person anyway. Like clones or something. So thank you, Wilson, for sparing us from a sequel that would be of truly grimdark proportions. And once again allow me to salute your subtle genius that still, books and books later, goes almost completely undiscovered.

4.5