After an interview for a fabulous job in London Adam Kindred meets a strangely behaving man in a restaurant and, soon after witnesses a murder. He realises that all the evidence -circumstantial and physical (DNA) places him firmly in the guilty spot and so he goes to ground, literally. A small plot in Chelsea by the Thames and a bridge, behind a fence and amongst trees and bushes.William Boyd is a great story teller and this is a great story. Examining how people can drop of the radar in our modern world and how they can survive while living rough. Adam turns to some crafty and dubious tricks to generate cash and meets people who survive in the shadows of our society. For quite a while Adam lives a diagrammatically opposite life to the one he had before the interview and learns how to live and love outside the privileged society he previously existed.For good measure we have the heavy who is trying to find Adam to remove the uncomfortable loose end and it is partly through his choice of lifestyle and his intellect that enables Adam to tackle this threat.The story ends without a full conclusion but leaves us wondering just how fortunate we are in our comfortable existence and just how close we all are to that state of living in which many exist.I suspect there may be a sequel to this book. Are suspenseful plots simply gratuitous, or am I missing the art of keeping a reader engaged in order to reach conclusion. Ordinary Thunderstorms is a page turner, an easy to consume, need to consume once started, read. The story takes you through areas of London tourists see, so it's familiar if you've walked along the Thames, Milbank, Chelsea, Battersea. The location as a character is well developed. The other characters, including Adam who's on the run, are cut-outs. There are £50 words used everywhere in the book, so a chance for building vocabulary is added. My nerves were on high alert anyway with hosting an upcoming fund raising dinner. This read just kept me on that unnecessary edge.
What do You think about Orages Ordinaires (2009)?
Solid, intelligent, well-written and plotted tale of skull-druggery and hide and seek.
—aimeewill
