Black books

Reading frothy books is a time-honoured part of the celebration of summer. There are many bestselling authors who probably wouldn't have sold a tenth as many books as they have, were it not for the tradition of stuffing a couple of brightly-covered pieces of trash in the old beach bag. For instance, were any copies of the Worst Book Ever Written (aka The DaVinci Code) sold anywhere apart from airport bookshops? I almost ruined a holiday in Italy a few years ago by taking that wretched piece of garbage along with me, and I'm still not sure I've fully forgiven the person who recommended it to me. (You know who you are!)

Since then I've tended to stay away from the "holiday reading" sections at the local Waterstone's, but this year I may have gone a bit too far in the opposite direction. For the past few weeks I've been pounding my way through "GB84" by David Peace, and "Homicide" by David Simon, the bloke who wrote The Wire. I've made it though without slitting my wrists, but it's been a close-run thing at times.

I've mentioned David Peace here before, as the author of The Damned United and a still-in-progress trilogy about post-war Tokyo. GB84, published about 5 years ago, is about the UK miners' strike of 1984, that epic test of strength between the Thatcher government and the Arthur Scargill-led NUM. As always with Peace, there's a blending of real and fictional people and events. At the start of each chapter, there's a single page of what appear to be reminiscences by actual miners -- the guys who did the picketing, got harassed by the police, lost their homes and families as the dispute dragged on. The chapters themselves focus more on the people pulling the strings -- Scargill and his union executive on the one side, and a government-hired provocateur named Stephen Sweet (mainly referred to as "the Jew", for no obvious reason) on the other. Throw in petty criminals, hitmen and assorted floozies, and you've got a powerful mix.

It's not exactly history -- Peace himself uses the term "occult" to describe his work -- but it succeeds powerfully in evoking the whole fraught period. Aside from finishing his Tokyo trilogy, Peace claims to be writing a book about Geoffrey Boycott. I have a feeling Boycs won't want his legendary granny to read it.

David Simon's "Homicide" recounts a year in the life of the homicide squad of the Baltimore Police Department. Baltimore experiences about 230 murders a year, and Simon managed to get himself attached to the squad for a full 12 months, working alongside the police and, evidently, taking very detailed notes. The year in question is 1988, so this precedes "The Wire" by more than a decade, though you can already identify many of the themes that Simon developed in the television series. Simon is a good writer and allows the lurid and sometimes tragic stories to unfold at their own pace. He brilliantly works little essays on key topics -- Miranda rights, how to perform an autopsy, how juries work -- into the story without losing momentum. At times it's a tough read -- the autopsy stuff is particularly gruesome -- but there's plenty of humour and suspense. At 630 pages, it seems all too short.

Good as these two books are, I think it's time for some light relief. Up next: a book about the legendary Fleet Street reporter and bon viveur, Bill Deedes.