Three Boys Gone - Mark Smith (2025)

 

Rating: Admirable

This is not going to be a typical book review, as, frankly, I’m just too knackered to concentrate on something like that. I’ve just spent the last two weeks (and it is ongoing) moving into my newly built home (a modern wooden Federation style weatherboard house). This involved lots of logistics, packing and then the actual shifting. Such is my dedication to physical media we moved forty-five boxes of books, twenty boxes of CDs and then packed, with the help of some friends, fifty-two boxes of vinyl records, which were then shifted by specialist removalists. Given it is also the end of the year (with all that December entails), and we are still setting up the new house, this will be brief.

Three Boys Gone is a library book club read and to make sure I was ready to lead the sessions I read it in advance, before all the house moving craziness begun. Therefore, I’m a bit hazy on the details, even though one of the meetings is today (I’ll fudge my way through if need be). The novel is the first adult fiction written by Mark Smith; he usually writes acclaimed YA fiction. It is a thriller about a school camping trip that goes terribly wrong. Whilst trekking along a remote beach three boys are separated from the main group and, for reasons never explained, run into the sea and are drowned. The teacher in charge, Grace Disher, is a witness, and as she decides to protect herself, she does not attempt to rescue them. The resulting outrage, hounding and bullying that follows makes for realistically harrowing reading. The novel is, in part, an examination of the pressures that can be brought to bear in our hyper-connected world. It is also a reasonably traditional thriller in that there is, of course, more to the story, typically leading to an extreme denouement. Three Boys Gone is quite well written, although Smith is not a great stylist, the writing is taut and impactful. Smith makes it easy to connect with Grace and her partner, Louise, who bear the brunt of the aftermath of the tragedy. If you are after a decent thriller written by an Australian author, then you could do far worse than Three Boys Gone. Now, it’s getting time to start unpacking those boxes of books, after I buy some more book shelves…

The Constant Gardener - John le Carre (2001)

Rating: Admirable


I had high hopes for The Constant Gardener when it was picked as a book club read due to the fact that in recent times I have had an urge to read novels from genres that I am not usually attracted too. John le Carre is famous for his espionage novels such as The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974) and although this novel is described as a thriller I was hoping for some intense duplicity and entertaining action sequences. The novel is set in Nairobi and takes in the British diplomatic set, morally compromised doctors and drug researchers, ruthless pharmaceutical companies and Tessa Quayle, a beautiful (of course) lawyer and social activist who stirs the hornets nest of all of the above and pays a grisly price.


The Constant Gardener begins promisingly, with the pompous and narcissistic character of Sandy Woodrow, a British diplomat, leading the way. Unfortunately Woodrow is not the main protagonist of this well written but ultimately flawed novel, rather it is the British horticulture loving Justin Quayle, older husband of the problematic Tessa. Perhaps the greatest flaw is that Justin is a character lacking depth and spark, which somewhat squanders the reader’s inclination to sympathize with his predicament. Ultimately the novel is just too long and has too many lengthy scenes with characters endlessly conversing, in particular there a number tedious police interview scenes, resulting in less than sparkling dialogue. There are also long tracts of official documentation that does not make for enthralling reading. In addition there are too few scenes in which there is a ratcheting up of narrative tension, which the novel sorely needed. Despite the novel's flaws le Carre is obviously a classy writer who boasts a significant reputation, so I’m sure that some of his other novels are much better than The Constant Gardener.