- Paperback: 246 pages
- Publisher: Pan (3 April 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0230706797
- ISBN-13: 978-0230706798
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 926,652 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Light Reading
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Product Description
My Weekly
`This dark detective story is full of mystery and intrigue with a truly shocking twist.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Now magazine
`A weird page turner with a surprising ending'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
Aliya Whiteley comes into her own with this quirky crime comedy about a pair of RAF wives who scarper from the base after one of them purchases the suicide note of a minor child celebrity-gone-bad off of Ebay. This an addictive black comedy about trying to make the most of a friendship founded on common discomfort and facing the past. Whilst getting shoved down basements with bin bags possibly containing body parts of course. A top read and surely the first in a long line of 'Lena & Pru Mysteries'. The No1 Ladies' Detective Agency it ain't.
Format:Hardcover
Light Reading begins on a British RAF airbase. The men have flown away to fight in the desert. This leaves their wives with little to do but gossip, try to survive the long, dark tea-times of coffee-and-walnut cake, and commit suicide. This last option is selected by only one of the wives, but it sends the protagonists, acerbic Pru and sexy Lena on a quest to the sleepy Devonian town of Allcombe.
You understand, reader, that a town described as 'sleepy' in such a book is far from sleepy; it's often lively in quite unexpected ways.
That's as far as I can go with the plot. It's genuinely interesting and mysteries and revealed, yet deepened, in much the same manner as Lost, without the concommitant desire to hunt down J J Abrahms and smother him with his own mystery box.
This book has some fantastic dialogue. There is a real tension between the protagonists and Aliya is skilful in her management of the two points of view. There are some moments when this device doesn't quite work. For example, in her diary, Lena reports the contents of a letter verbatim despite having read it one over another character's shoulder. But the duality of the narrative is itself a mystery that keeps the reader wanting to know more.
The ending is subversive and clever. Well worth it.
You understand, reader, that a town described as 'sleepy' in such a book is far from sleepy; it's often lively in quite unexpected ways.
That's as far as I can go with the plot. It's genuinely interesting and mysteries and revealed, yet deepened, in much the same manner as Lost, without the concommitant desire to hunt down J J Abrahms and smother him with his own mystery box.
This book has some fantastic dialogue. There is a real tension between the protagonists and Aliya is skilful in her management of the two points of view. There are some moments when this device doesn't quite work. For example, in her diary, Lena reports the contents of a letter verbatim despite having read it one over another character's shoulder. But the duality of the narrative is itself a mystery that keeps the reader wanting to know more.
The ending is subversive and clever. Well worth it.
Format:Hardcover
It's strange that this book is called Light Reading. After all, Light Reading is largely about death.
Pru Green and her friend Lena are RAF wives, they live on an RAF base and take it in turns to visit other wives homes to eat cake and drink coffee while their husbands are away fighting (or whatever - having sex with other men, dressing up in women's clothes) in Iraq.
This life is one of facade. Everyone knows everyone else's dirty little secrets but they remain tight-lipped to maintain equilibrium. In the first chapter this equilibrium is shattered. One of the wives commits suicide, not able to deal with the fact her husband is sleeping with another man.
This man happens to be Lena's husband and Lena and Pru no longer able to cope with the life on the base quickly decamp to Allcombe on a tangent to unravel the mysterious circumstances or not of the death of a former child star.
The month is December and these days Allcombe is not even its best in the summer. Allcombe is a dilapidated seaside resort of fading hotels and insalubrious rest homes, its bars inhabited by bored teenagers on the look out for a quick shag or something more sinister.
Lena and Pro have a hate love love hate relationship, each one trying to work out their own inner turmoils by solving a mystery that may or may not be there.
And this is where Light Reading is so successful. Onto the dynamics of a page turning potboiler is bolted a pairing of real substance and weight. I really wanted to know where these characters had come from and where they were going. The pages kept turning because I wanted to know the answer to the mystery but what I really cared about was what happened to these two. And I wasn't disappointed. There are no easy answers because in life there never is. Hugely enjoyable.
Pru Green and her friend Lena are RAF wives, they live on an RAF base and take it in turns to visit other wives homes to eat cake and drink coffee while their husbands are away fighting (or whatever - having sex with other men, dressing up in women's clothes) in Iraq.
This life is one of facade. Everyone knows everyone else's dirty little secrets but they remain tight-lipped to maintain equilibrium. In the first chapter this equilibrium is shattered. One of the wives commits suicide, not able to deal with the fact her husband is sleeping with another man.
This man happens to be Lena's husband and Lena and Pru no longer able to cope with the life on the base quickly decamp to Allcombe on a tangent to unravel the mysterious circumstances or not of the death of a former child star.
The month is December and these days Allcombe is not even its best in the summer. Allcombe is a dilapidated seaside resort of fading hotels and insalubrious rest homes, its bars inhabited by bored teenagers on the look out for a quick shag or something more sinister.
Lena and Pro have a hate love love hate relationship, each one trying to work out their own inner turmoils by solving a mystery that may or may not be there.
And this is where Light Reading is so successful. Onto the dynamics of a page turning potboiler is bolted a pairing of real substance and weight. I really wanted to know where these characters had come from and where they were going. The pages kept turning because I wanted to know the answer to the mystery but what I really cared about was what happened to these two. And I wasn't disappointed. There are no easy answers because in life there never is. Hugely enjoyable.
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