August 2026 Reads
(Writing this in October of 2026. As noted in the July edition, Things Kept Happening, and, well, yeah, here we are. Presented in the name of timeline repair.)
The Preamble
Taking a leisurely time over house move was a privilege and, in some key respects, a planning error. It allowed time creep to occur, with what could have been done and dusted quickly expanding to fit all the time available, with the going up and down the motorway taking on a repetitive, compulsive, liminal aspect.
Then we went straight into a long-overdue short holiday, which had all the more pleasurable aspects of liminal spaces: airport terminals, hotels, and the destination, which had a pool, by the side of which one might read vintage crime novels, eventually.
The Books
What Have I Done? - Ben Elton
The Hunted - Elmore Leonard
Black Betty - Walter Mosley
What Have I Done? - Ben Elton
When I was younger I loved Blackadder, and retrospectively The Young Ones, and I saw him perform stand-up live on the tour that eventually morphed into The Man from Auntie... I even recall Happy Families and Filthy Rich and Catflap. So, a lot of my interpretation of Ben Elton is based on his having been such a large part of my life growing up, and I recognise now how much of an influence he was in terms of comic worldview and writing styles.
This autobiography is honest, and mostly not over-written. Elton's clearly sincere in a lot of ways, and one gets a sense of a tremendous work ethic, a writing compulsion that has brought him success through lucky timing, determination and an ability to riff off other's ideas, qualities I found myself admiring.
However, I remember also quite vividly how disappointed I was watching the first episode of The Thin Blue Line, and with most of the novels I've attempted to read.
There's something of the school swot about him that - as he acknowledges - just seems to rile some people. Why is Jonathan Ross (as personification of this tendency) so mean to him? Perhaps it's the relentless, Benjy's Funhouse Hall of Mirrors, overdone social reflection? Perhaps the ego massaging of the should-have-called-it-a-day-when-Freddie-passed band Queen, with the incomprehensible and unnecessary We Will Rock You musical? Maybe it was the shiny-faced band introductions at the Queen's Golden Jubilee? "Ladies and gentlemen, will you please give it up for The Spice Girls?!"
While writing with a great deal of self-awareness, Elton seems throughout to be nursing a grievance about never really having garnished the respect, or perhaps acknowledgement, that he might reasonably expect, indeed, quite the opposite. It's the book's tendencies to fall into querulous self-justification that hamper it. While seen as a "sellout" in some respects, he has never done an advert; as someone who seems to see life in terms of gigs, and getting to do what he wants to pay the bills, that's actually pretty cool. Then he drops in another anecdote about how much of a pal George Harrison of The Beatles became, and you just want to chuck the book on the floor.
The Hunted - Elmore Leonard
This was me going into full holiday reads mode, and if you're going to read a holiday thriller it should be by Elmore Leonard. Astonishingly hard to find in second hand shops, Leonard's books are clearly highly prized, never finding their way into the charity box. Finding this one for £1, I leaped on it.
It's got the usual Leonard hallmarks: a mixed cast, relaxed dialogue, spare prose, a tricksy set up, a well-handled climactic showdown. Set in Israel in the 1970s, it has a fascination with new-build hotel glamour and recent brutal conflict, and it was interesting to see how well some of that had aged like labneh in Mediterranean sunshine. It's not one of the best Elmores I've read, but even second division Elmore Leonard is better than most writers, and it was Just The Thing.
Black Betty - Walter Mosley
Found this at the same place I found the Elmore Leonard, and it's occurred to me that I should be trying harder to recall where that was on the grounds that I might have hit a rich seam.
This was another excellent bit of crime fiction, from 1994, set in 1961. It brings LA and California to life like Chandler or Hammett do, and Rawlins is an engagingly complex narrator, simultaneously self-assured and vulnerable, angry and hopeful.
I'd not read any of the Easy Rawlins books, and I discovered with some interest that Mosley is still making them happen. Worth a deep dive, I think, based on this happenstance find.
Concludals
That was it for August. The rest of the time it was mostly Private Eye, The Week, and attempts to read Le Canard Enchaine. Et vive les vacances! Coming up in September... oh no, back to work.
