Yet another via P as I can’t choose books for myself at the moment.
This, sadly, was completed by his son as Torday died just before it was finished. I had never heard of him, but he wrote the book of a rather undistinguished film called ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’. This was hugely topical, given current events in British politics (a battle for the Tory leadership and prime ministerial role) when I began it (I think) although the charismatic Boris Johnson has now been stabbed in the back by the less than charismatic Michael Gove. Still, Boris if you were the (anti-) hero of this book you would have gouged your eyes out by the end.
In the book our anti-hero’s car is hit by an owl on his drive home and brutally kills the injured creature, not a good move by a government minister and aspirant PM with some responsibility for wildlife and the environment.
There follows endless conspiracies to shift blame, but meanwhile the owl population are bent on revenge.
It is a good read, a bit of magic realism and a bit of Shakespeare (moving woods in the context of political power mongering). I found the central character/narrator, a fringe character in the whole thing, rather hard work. It would have been a better book if he had been better developed.
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