The Servants

Michael Marshall Smith’s 2008 release The Servants seems almost like a return to his routes. Taking a break from writing under Michael Marshall, he invokes his original writing style with a story focusing on 11 year old Mark, who has just moved from London to a wintry Brighton with his ill mother and new stepfather, who he barely knows.

M. M. Smith creates a ghost like environment for our characters, with strange occurrences that go largely unexplained and are left mostly up to the readers own imagination and interpretation, which is something I love about Michael's books The Straw Men trilogy and Bad Things.

I’ve read a number of reviews of the book and I was saddened that quite a few people seem to have been left disappointed. Personally I enjoyed it, it’s a nice size, at 233 pages, making it possible to read fairly quickly.

There are a relatively small number of characters, which I think adds to the feeling of isolation and loneliness that Mark spends most of the book feeling. I really liked that about it, I felt that it kind of enabled you to experience mark’s worldview more intimately.

The sense of solitude seems to create this unique new world, that although set in Brighton, feels like an entirely different place altogether and I think that helped me get immersed even more so into the book, which is exactly what I look for in a novel.

I bought the burgundy coloured paperback which I think is perfectly designed to fit in with the imagery portrayed inside this book, from the gold decorated borders, right down to the choice of fonts, I’m a big type nerd. It might sound odd talking about the design of the book, but I just feel that it captures the overall imagery of the novel so well and deserves a mention.

Final Words

I find it difficult to properly describe how this book made me feel while reading it, but I really enjoyed it and I highly recommend it to anyone who is at all interested by what I’ve had to say about it.

As always I’m interested in others opinions and discussion so please, let me know what you think and if you can recommend anything similar, I’d be glad to hear it.

If you want to find out more about The Servants you can head on over to Amazon for reviews or to purchase your own copy.

Phil.