#63 Requiem for a Wren, by Neville Shute (Vintage)

Fresh from the brilliant A Town Like Alice, I rushed to read more of Neville Shute’s work and it was a decision which paid dividends.

Requiem for a Wren is another World War love story, albeit a simpler tale of a man trying to discover more about the life of his deceased brother’s girlfriend while also investigating the apparent suicide of a maid at his parents’ house.

But the elegant way the story unfolds and draws you into the lives of the main characters, and the ramifications that events which occurred in the dim and distant past have on the present, makes the book a real delight.

Writing this brief review a few weeks after completing it, and having read another five books since, it’s hard to recollect exactly what I like about Shute’s work. His style is very simple yet effective, he returns to subjects on which he has a lot of knowledge, such as Australia and the war, his female characters are particularly interesting, even if dead, and his romances remain strong despite some pretty impossible situations. Put it all together and it’s a literary love affair.

So, rating time:

#63 Requiem for a Wren, by Neville Shute (Vintage) - 9/10

Next up: The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler (Penguin Group)

Click here for the full list of books so far, and their rating