The Miracle Inspector [Kindle Edition]

If Patricia Highsmith wrote dystopian fiction but had more of a sense of humor, it might be something like The Miracle Inspector. The book opens in an England of the near future that's been partitioned and in decay. London proper seems to have the worst of it, walled off and Taliban-like in its social clampdown. Women can't leave the home. The Arts are off-limits. Men work meaningless bureaucratic jobs that only serve the faceless authority that keeps them all locked in, both socially and interpersonally. The book focuses on one couple, Lucas and Angela, who think they once loved each other but are really just strangers passing each other constantly. An aging and legendary underground poet, Jesmond, fuels their secret needs to escape to that sought-after heaven, Cornwall. They're all not especially likable, but they're always a little more so than those around them, chipping away at them. It works.

The saddest part might not be that they can't have what they want, but rather that they don't truly know what they'd want if they could have it.

I mention Patricia Highsmith because Smith deftly works in the dark urges and fears of Lucas, Angela and others in a way that only psychological mystery and espionage writers like Highsmith and Graham Greene do well. The story manages to remind of 1984, Brazil, Children of Men, The Road and other noirish dystopian tales yet manages to be original, partially through the dark and often subtle humor. Yes, I'm mixing films with books here, because I think this would make a good film script.

If I could give this 4.5 stars I would, but as we know we have to choose between 4s and 5s. I would have like to have had more setup and background about how England became this way, but that's also a product of me liking the story enough.

I'll be reading more from this author.

This is the third novel by Helen Smith. In The Miracle Inspector, the author's trademark humour leaks through the dialogue, in the wonderful verbal shorthand between the characters. Helen Smith's writing is confident and competent, always full of surprises. She has a real knack for using the unexpected to draw the reader into the story, creating tension, while maintaining a secretive intimacy.

The story is set in a dictatorship which is what London has become in a not-so-difficult-to-imagine future. Corruption is rife amongst its cliquey government departments, incomprehensible hierarchies and arbitrarily distributed privileges. Lucas has all the skills to be Winston Smith, the man who rewrites the news in Orwell's 1984, but here he is an inspector of miracles, though he has little hope of ever finding one. A subtext of disturbing menace is gradually revealed beneath a thin layer of urban domesticity. Women are forbidden to work outside the house and are permitted only to visit female relatives. Paranoia and mistrust multiply amidst rumour and the certainty of `disappearances'. No-one, it seems, survives to die of old age.

There is a constant tension between Lucas and his wife Angela - what he thinks she may be thinking is never what she is actually thinking. This causes the high-ranking official great unhappiness and he struggles with finding a solution. The humour serves to make the tragedy of miscommunication and misunderstanding all the more intense.

This story illustrates, with a curious beauty, how bewildering fantasy and irrationality can become the everyday experience of a population trapped in such circumstances; how far the human mind may retreat into imagination to defy and escape from the horrors of interrogation.

Subtly terrifying, this is the author's most important book to date. The novel is at least partially influenced by Helen Smith's work as a mentor to exiled writers at the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. An antidote to complacency; if you feel at all contented with the world as it is, you must read this.

Having read the long list of good reviews, I was expecting a good book. And I was not disappointed, in fact it was more brilliant than I imagined. Most of the other reviewers have already covered the key aspect of this fantastic book, all it remains for me to say is that it was such a pleasure to read an authentic story line with intricate plot.

Whilst conventional writing wisdom holds that when story gets too dark, audiences tend to flock towards diversion, fluff and ostentatious glamour, but not this book. The author creates a riveting ambience and environment of the murky vision of the future that compels the reader to be absorbed deep into the time, place, characters' emotions and experiences. It offers a powerful lens for examining contemporary society and really push us (the reader) into a fundamental re-evaluation of our lives.

The book is a tender portrait of humanity floundering in the ideological clutches of totalitarianism - deliberately stark but hugely entertaining. Highly recommended.