William Boyd - Ordinary Thunderstorms

Review by Corinna Christopher on show 17th June.
One May evening a perfectly nice young man, Adam Kindred, loses everything - home, job, reputation, passport, credit cards, mobile phone - never to get them back. A Climatologist, he has just had an interview for a new job when a chance encounter with a strange man in a restaurant begins a series of unfortunate happenings. A murder takes place and the police and a sinister hit man called Jonjo are after him. He has to disappear and begins a new life with the poor and destitute of our capital city.
During this time he encounters aristocrats, prostitutes, evangelists and the needy. The story of what happens to him is exciting and absorbing with corruption and conspiracy at the heart of the matter. He uncovers a terrible cover-up in a huge pharmaceutical company. There are many twists and turns and along the way he meets up with a policewoman and falls in love. This proves to be a tricky situation as at the time he has acquired the persona of a dead person and a false identity.
This is a thrilling read and the main character is very likeable so that the reader is agog for the next development in the plot. The atmosphere of our modern metropolis is brilliantly evoked and also the changes in the personality of Adam Kindred. He does commit one indefensible crime by disposing of a blackmailer, but is redeemed at the end of the book by caring for a young boy whose path he had crossed.
There is a satisfactory conclusion to everything and eventually Adam feels that he might be able to take up his normal life again. As Adam says " the myriad connections between two discrete lives - close, distant, overlapping, tangential - lie there almost unknown, unobserved, a great unseen network of the nearly, the almost, the might-have-been".
William Boyd is the author of 9 novels and has won several awards.
His recent book 'Restless@ was winner of the Costa Novel of the year.
This is an excellent read and very much recommended.
Review by Corinna