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Book ReviewHearts & Minds by Amanda Craig
Reviewed by Dianne Blashill
If you’re as nosey as I am and your neighbours just don’t provide enough entertainment to keep your interest levels up then the next best thing is to delve into a book about people and their lives, Hearts and Minds is one of those books.
Don’t let the title put you off, this story is about London, it’s not a tub-thumping American novel. It’s a modern novel, set in the run up to the Olympics and the beginning of the financial melt down, it incorporates a murder, terrorism and a brilliant fight scene.
The chapters hop between each character whose lives sometimes overlap and sometimes don’t quite meet up, sometimes one chapter will leave you with a cliff hanger and the next one starts with a tease that pulls you straight into the life of the next person, it’s one of those books that once you start reading you can’t stop – you just have to know what happens next.
Polly is a British Jewish mother, a human rights lawyer, and the ex wife of an American banker, her two children are looked after by Iryna a Polish illegal immigrant. Katie is an American who has broken off her engagement to a rich man and come to London to work at a struggling publication. Ian is a white South African who has come to London to search for his father and is teaching in an inner city school. Job is a black South African who is illegally working in London as a mini-cab driver and car washer despite having been a teacher back at home. Anna has been trafficked from Poland to become a prostitute in a Russian run brothel.
Their lives intertwine, skirt around each others, sometimes you can see the solution to a problem but the characters don’t speak to one another, an opportunity is missed and the momentum moves on. It is not a depressing read nor does it preach to the reader. There is no neat trying up of strands at the end and a self righteous lesson, everyone compromises in order to get on in the world, just like real life. The non-British characters despair at the reticence of the British, their lack of warmth and friendliness, the British characters struggle with their sense of boundaries.
Published by Abacus £7.99
ISBN 978 0 349 11587 0
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