The Stranger Times C.K. McDonnell (Penguin, $24) Reviewer: Louise Ward, Wardini Books
This novel is named for the newspaper the story revolves around. The Stranger Times reports on ghost sightings, UFOs, all sorts of odd stuff. It never states that these stories are fact, just investigates and reports.
Hannah is going througha divorce from a rich husband – she doesn't want any of his money, but doesn't have much of her own so after not working for her whole adult life, she needs a job. She's got an interview for the position of assistant editor at The Stranger Times and finds the newspaper's building to be in a run-down but quite beautiful old (decommissioned) church in the middle of Manchester.
After the world's most bizarre interview, Hannah is hired by the paper's editor, Vincent Banecroft, who is described as looking like his own corpse waiting to happen. He's Irish, rude, scruffy, sleeps at his desk in an office where the excellent word detritus is used as a descriptor several times. Banecroft is a marvellously awful character - erudite, articulate and angry.
Other pivotal characters are office manager Grace and young protege Stella, and reporters Ox and Reggie. There's another mysterious member of staff who lives in the basement with the printing press – Manny, who has white dreadlocks so long he wears them wrapped about his neck.
The plot thickens when a homeless man is found dead in peculiar circumstances and Banecroft and co are determined to get to the bottom of things. Hannah soon comes to realise there's a lot more to life, the universe and everything than she'd previously thought.
The whole thing is so vividly and humorously described that the reader comes to very much believe there is magic in the world, that we should pay closer attention and mind out for the fantastical. Upon finishing The Stranger Times, I wanted a sequel to read immediately. Fortunately, it's out now, it's called This Charming Man and there are vampires.
