I actually read this book a few months ago and only today realised I hadn't sent any feedback/review. I think the main reason for this oversight is, unfortunately, because I found the book a bit disappointing and forgettable. I'm not sure how to categorise it. I can't call it a thriller as I wasn't very thrilled and it all seemed rather superficial. A spy satire maybe? I really wanted to love this book but in the end it was just okay. On a positive note, I did quite like the humour in the story and anyone interested in the lifestyles of rich, immoral people may well lap this story up. I wish I could be more positive about my experience of reading this book, though it could well be that this is a case of 'it's not you, it's me'.

This book grew on me. The first few pages left me a baffled: a lot of characters were introduced and both the dialogue and the scenes felt like they jumped around with no clear direction.

I’ll be honest – I had no idea what was going on!

But the story unravels to be a tale of mystery and intrigue: who exactly is Hoffer and what happened in his past? Why does he live in London when he is from somewhere else? We get hints and teasing snippets throughout – his connection with Mexico, his banishment from America, his dealings with Russian billionaires who can whisk people away to different countries on a whim. The reader is never given the whole story, but I warmed to Hoffer’s character as the story progresses.

Hoffer is a liar with a shady past, prepared to commit crimes – even murder – to protect himself. But he isn’t callous or cruel and his need for financial stability and just to survive are traits most readers can relate to – even if not to the same extent.

Hoffer lives in a bubble – he is antisociably sociable. But he doesn’t use email or mobiles. That alongside the London high society made this novel very difficult to place in time. It was only a reference to skype that implied it was modern times rather than back in the 60’s. To read an entire novel and get no clear reference point of the time is really disconcerting! Do we still have the high society in today’s culture that Hoffer was mingling with?

The majority of the characters are likeable enough, even if they are superfluous. But none of them, not even Hoffer himself, are given any true depth. I never understood why the `bad guy` scared Hoffer so badly, which made him appear less of a threat than he was supposed to be. There needed to be more character development.

Nonetheless, Hoffer is a short and enjoyable tale that did keep me turning the pages. There are a few unexpected twists along the way (including an unusual use for an umbrella!) that kept me gripped. An enjoyable enough read that needs a little tightening up in places.

If you've read Glencross' Barbarians then this is similar in writing style but with a more expansive and engaging plot. Once again, we have the acidic skewering of a social milieu: the wealthy in cash, poor in morality. Hoffer himself is an engaging narrator with a nice line in words: 'I found myself reviving my Italian, an unsteady combination of Spanish and half-remembered phrases from opera' - but one with a nebulous identity and a murky background that enables him to fit in whether with the rich, the shady or the outright criminal.

The plot is complicated taking in Russian oligarchs, the security services and Mexican drug cartels ('soon enough the problem wasn't ragtag Leninists running around Central America but the narco monsters the United States had helped create') and when a girl is found murdered in Hoffer's flat, things get too close to comfort for him.

This reminded me of Graham Greene crossed with Evelyn Waugh: that waspish, gossipy tone overlaid on a tale of morals gone awry. Glencross keeps things brisk so that this is a quick read which is wise: any longer and I might have tired of the slightly mannered style. A fast read that kept me entertained on the commute.

To be posted on Amazon and Goodreads

I enjoyed Hoffer, although I'm not entirely convinced by it.

The novel is narrated in the first person by Willam Hoffer, a nebulous figure who moves in fashionable London circles, mixing with Society People and the very rich while offering them a sort of vague "consultancy" service. He seems to be a kind of fixer, who knows a lot of very shady people and can help to negotiate deals, find desirable art and so on. His past (or some of it) emerges slowly and very skilfully, as his relationship with a Russian billionaire begins to sour and events from his time negotiating with Mexican drug cartels begin to catch up with him and the book develops into a sort of mystery/thriller.

It's well done; Tim Glencross writes very well and Hoffer's slightly cynical, world-weary tone is convincing and sometimes very amusing. His penetrating descriptions of the world of the rich in London are excellent and there is some real social observation here as well as a building sense of tension and occasional violent and gruesome action. I found strong echoes of both Evelyn Waugh and of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley and the combination worked very well.

The style and story certainly kept me reading and wanting more, but it did wander into some slightly contrived and inconclusive territory which ended up being rather anticlimactic, I thought. I don't mind an ambiguous, inconclusive ending at all, but this seemed just a little too unconvincing while leaving an awful lot unresolved.

Perhaps Tim Glengross is setting this up as the start of a series; if he is I'll certainly read the next one. Meanwhile, this is a very good, if slightly flawed novel in its own right which I can recommend with some slight caveats as an enjoyable, engrossing read.

(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)