Forget spirit of Blitz, serial killers stalked the streets during war

Amy Helen Bell, Yale University Press, £22, out now

Truth be told I’m not really one for true crime in print or on podcasts. But Amy Helen Bell’s social history of murders in wartime London is fascinating, horrifying and often deeply sad. In a way it’s another corrective to the “myth of the Blitz” (cf Angus Calder), pointing out that living under the fear of nightly bombings is hardly conducive to good mental health. And if the blackout allowed for more sexual freedom and a sense of adventure it was also a boon to predators too.

“The social dislocation and the emotional toll of war increased deadly violence in the family and among strangers,” Bell writes, “while the bomb-scarred landscape helped to hide the victims.”

And so there was not one but two serial killers stalking the streets of London during the war, RAF aircraftman Gordon Cummins and John “Reg” Christie. German bombers were not the only thing Londoners had to worry about.

But the real strength of Bell’s book is how she uses her accounts of the city’s wartime murders as a vehicle to examine such issues as race relations and sexuality whilst never losing sight of the victims she writes about. There’s nothing prurient or voyeuristic here. But you can feel the sorrow.

Andrew Ford (Image: free)The Shortest History of Music

Andrew Ford, Old Street, £14.99, out now

Sometimes brevity allows boldness. Andrew Ford’s musical history is indeed short, just over 200-odd pages. It certainly skips along briskly as a result; I imagine if it was translated into a score it would say the word “allegro” at the top. But it never feels rushed. Arranged thematically rather than chronologically, the Australian critic jumps between the centuries (often in the space of a paragraph or two) as he explores the impact of tradition and technology, religion and economy in a book that ranges far beyond the Western canon. And in doing so he still finds room for the piquant detail. During China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s Lu Hongen, the conductor of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra was amongst those executed. “The following day,” Ford notes, “his wife was invoiced for the bullet.”

Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Agnetha Faltskog and Bjorn Ulvaeus of the Swedish pop group Abba at the Dorchester Hotel, London in 1982 (Image: PA) The Book of ABBA: Melancholy Undercover

Jan Gradvall, Faber, £20, October 10

Is there anything new to say about ABBA, one might ask? Actually, it turns out there is. Drawing on exclusive interviews with Bjorn, Benny Agnetha and Frida, Swedish music journalist Jan Gradvall reframes the band’s story here, placing it in a very Swedish context of herring, Aquavit and left-wing politics. In doing so he reminds us just how unlikely their success was. Here was a band from a small country with no history of pop music who somehow conquered the world. The result is fascinating, insightful and often funny and is a good primer as to why everyone from drag queens to Kurt Cobain loved ABBA.

That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz by Malachy Tallack (Image: free) That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz

Malachy Tallack, Canongate, £16.99, October 24

After gaining notice and awards for his non-fiction, Shetland-raised and Fife-based Malachy Tallack is now proving himself a serious novelist. A story of friendship, music and the sea, Tallack’s second novel That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz takes us from a whaling ship in the South Atlantic to a cottage in Shetland and finds a rough tenderness and beauty in both. Tallack has also recorded an album of songs - also called That Beautiful Atlantic Waltz - to complement the novel and he will be giving readings and playing tunes in a number of special events at the end of the month at Topping and Company, St Andrews on October 24, The Portobello Bookshop on October 28, The Wee Bookshop in Dollar on October 29 and Main Street Trading Company in St Boswells on October 30.

Alan Hollinghurst (Image: free) Our Evenings

Alan Hollinghurst, Picador, £22, out now

Alan Hollinghurst’s seventh novel is sumptuous enough to sink into, a heady, immersive literary pleasure that covers 50 years. We follow his protagonist Dave Win from schoolboy to acting career, taking in his travels and love affairs. It is also the story of his widowed mother and his contemporary Giles Hadlow who grows up to be a politician. A state of the nation novel that tackles race, class and sexuality.

Barbara Kingsolver (Image: free)

Holding the Line

Barbara Kingsolver, Faber, £16.99, October 10

In 1983 Barbara Kingsolver - best known for her novels Demon Copperhead and The Poison Bible but then a science writer with a sideline in freelance journalism - was sent to cover the Phelps Dodge mine strike in Arizona. She spent a year with the miners and their families and dug out stories of people targeted by the government, police and their employers. As she writes in her new introduction, “this is a book about the people who held the line, and those people were women.” It is also a reminder of the importance of unions in industrial relations. This is the first time the book has been published in the UK.

A fascinating history (Image: free) Citrus: A World History

David J Mabberley, Thames and Hudson, £35, October 17

When it came to contraception the notoriously licentious Giacomo Girolamo Casanova would often use a solution of lemon juice. It was a pretty good choice, botanist and writer David Mabberley points out, as lemon juice is one of nature’s most effective spermicides. His handsomely illustrated new book embraces oranges, lemons, limes, pomelos and kumquats in a story that takes in everything from Alexander the Great to the Mafia. In Germany’s Black Forest mourners still carry lemons at funerals because in the Middle Ages it was thought the fruit’s aroma protected you from the plague.

Adrift on a Painted Sea by Tim Bird (Image: free) Adrift on a Painted Sea

Tim Bird, Avery Hill, £14.99, out now

Tim Bird is the cartoonist of British domesticity; his comic strips are a symphony of street lights and motorway service stations, supermarkets and seaside towns. Adrift on a Painted Sea is a memoir that tells the story of Bird’s mum Sue who painted as a hobby throughout her life. This sweet, sad story is a quiet marvel, one that lingers long after you’ve turned the last page.

Food-lover Stanley Tucci (Image: free)

What I Ate in One Year

Stanley Tucci, Fig Tree, £20, October 10

The actor and bon viveur can claim to be both an Emmy winner and a Sunday Times bestseller (for his memoir Taste). His latest book is a diary of the meals he ate over 12 months, at home, in restaurants and on film sets. How many of us can say we’ve had duck a l’orange cooked and served up by singing Carmelite nuns?

Stuart Murdoch is the frontman of Belle and Sebastian (Image: free)

Nobody’s Empire

Stuart Murdoch, Faber, £20, October 10

Is it a memoir or fiction? A bit of both, actually. The frontman of Belle and Sebastian recreates his younger years here in wonderfully limpid prose that looks at music and art and life and gives an insight into his struggles with ME.