Book Review of “Ordinary Thunderstorms“ by William Boyd
By Benedikt Röther

The novel “Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd first was published in 2009. It is the story of Adam Kindred who is a climatologist in flight from America is in London for a job interview. While dining alone, he starts a conversation with Philip Wang, an immunologist. Suddenly he leaves some papers in the restaurant. Adam attempts to return them, but instead he finds his new acquaintance deadly with a bread knife in his side. While starring at the corpse, he does two momentous things: he removes the bread knife and therefore ensuring both death and fingerprints, and goes on the run, pursued by Wang's killer. With a murderer and the police behind him, he has to begin a new life in the underground of London being anxious not getting caught by the police nor by those, who want the papers back Wang lost. Besides that “Ordinary Thunderstorms” tells about the creation and eventually failure of Zembla-4, a new medicine which killed many children.

Personally I liked the book as it is a thrilling map through London resting in very different places with even more different people. It is highly interesting how Boyd describes even the smallest details in characters and their development. So the turn of Kindred from a reputable citizen to nothing, to an illegal, homeless people was something I never experienced before. Besides Kindred’s fate there are a lot more personal story as JonJo and his search and chase for Kindred, Ingram and his problems to get Zembla-4 a well-working medicine or Mhouse, a prostitute, trying to separate work and privacy for her son.
All these personal stories at the same time making it hard to concentrate or at least to state the main plot. In my opinion, there are a little too much sub-plots. This on the one hand surely makes an atmosphere of metropolis showing the many different perspectives and characters and their lifes in a megacity, on the other hand confuses about who whom knows and in which relations they stand. This brings, that is not quite possible to state a real thesis and theme of this book. It is a mixture of a thriller treating the murder of Wang and a psycho-novel about personal fates
Another point is, that “Ordinary Thunderstorms” definitely describes the development of people and their situations, but compared to the length of the bock there is a little shortage of material. The book includes passages which seem to be a bit too long and are not as important for the plot as others. 
Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading the book. It is a thrilling story not just of Kindred but of every single person as they are completely different regarding their characters, financial and social possibilities and their aims. These personal lifestories are packaged in a crime novel and the following disappearance in the underground of London. This megacity is described in its every facet’s very detailed as well.

William Boyd, „Ordinary Thunderstorms“

Book Review by Freya Simonsohn

In brief: Adam Kindred, the main character, is innocent at the beginning, but becomes the only suspect in a murder of a man he hardly knows. In London to find a job as a scientist, he has to drop his identity and live underground as a beggar on a waste ground near Chelsea Bridge. He has got some files from Wang, the man being murdered, that reveal criminal aims of a big pharmaceutical company. They developed a medicine for asthma. Testing it, 14 children died, which the company wants to keep secret in order not to run the risk of losing their profit. Though Adam contacts a journalist, who writes an article on the subject, this article will never be published. Fryzer, the president of the company, dies of brain tumor.

Adam adopts different identities trying to hide. Jonjo Case, former soldier in Iraq, was financed by the pharmaceutical company to find and kill Adam, since he is regarded as Wang´s murderer. Case fails to find Kindred, and is therefore forced to leave the country. Adam, as Primo Belem, falls in love with a police woman and they plan a common future.

I find this book fascinating from the first page and exciting, though it is not a typical breathless thriller. Often, thriller authors chase their characters through the story, create one catastrophe after another and are full of bloodshed and slaughter. This book is very readable, at times poetic, and informative. You get to know the characters quite well; you learn about a criminal pharmaceutical company, you learn about the city of London and especially about living in the underground there as “invisible”. In opposite to most thrillers, most of the characters do not have to suffer too severely for being unreasonable.

What I like about this book: The reader is touched by the speed, developed only in the first twenty pages, how an identity and life can fall into pieces without any warning and without anything that you can call “guilt”. Though Adam Kindred, the protagonist and “hero” of the book, tries to do everything “right” and follows only his instincts. In only a few hours he finds himself being chased by the police and a company that finances a professional killer in order to find and kill him. So I regard “identity” as the main topic, the sudden loss of a seemingly safe identity and role, and Kindred´s necessity to change identities several times. At the end, he is glad to having got rid of his old identity a hundred percent with all his negative associations with it in order to be able to start a new life with Rita, a policewoman. Especially while reading the beginning I was happy that my life has not yet become so chaotic and horrific in a twinkling of an eye and hopefully will never become. As a reader, you can imagine how it feels to be somebody else. Identity seems to be more fragile that I thought it was.

The author changes the perspectives especially from Adam, Rita, Jonjo and Ingram Fryzer. I prefer stories told by the author´s perspective or the leading character, because I find the often chance of perspectives quite puzzling. 

The author shows a good sense of humor, what I like too. One of the “jokes” is, that Adam Kindred follows his instincts instead of his principles and, by this, is at least true to himself and can rescue some sort of life quality and content. Funny is for instance, that the Church of John Christ, where Adam Kindred gets food and shelter and a new identity, promotes that the apostle John, not Jesus, is the true redeemer. A black prostitute becomes his partner, not the typical sexy blonde you find in James Bond or Hitchcock films, but a mother, that quiets her son by putting some rum in his cereal.  The hero develops successful surviving skills as killing and roasting seagulls.  A prosecuted murderer being in love with a successful policewoman, planning a common future: It is funny, isn´t it? If she knew who he was, I doubt if she would have fallen in love with him. It is also funny when Adam meets Jonjo Case, who is chasing him, but he does not recognize him with full beard and holding a child´s hand. “Case” is nearly the same word as “chase”. Jonjo Case is a psychopath who loves his dog, like Hitler did, hates blacks and likes to torture his victims.  It also shows a sense of humor that Adam pays Mhouse, a prostitute, for sex with his begging money.            

What I like too is that the city of London is one of the characters of the book. Only in such a metropolis with its anonymity one can get “lost” and stay hidden, if one does not use mobile phones, internet and credit cards, and start anew with another identity. So this book is also a travel in time. What I like about Adam is, that he lost all his possessions, but he is not desperate, but happy. I admire his ability to adapt to every new situation. What I miss is the explanation for this attitude. The internal look at the human psyche is, in my point of view, not deep enough. This is not satisfying, since it is underexplored. Generally speaking, I can recommend this book when you expect good and exciting entertainment with some information on living underground in the city of London.        

“Ordinary thunderstorms” – book review

by Luise Meyer

“Ordinary thunderstorms have the capacity to transform themselves into multi-cell storms of ever growing complexity.” This quote at the beginning of the novel shall explain why a respectable man, the climatologist named Adam Kindred, only has to make a few small mistakes, in order to cause the biggest mess and to end as a beggar on the banks of the Thames.

“Ordinary thunderstorms” is a novel, more precisely a thriller, by William Boyd. It was first published in Great Britain in 2009, by Bloomsbury. The book coasts £5.99 and the ISBN is 978-1-4088-0606-7. The novel deals with the fragility of human identity. Adam Kindred becomes, through the chain of unfortunate circumstances, the only prime suspect of a murder. But Adam did not commit that murder of a man that he barely knew. Thereupon Kindred decides to go underground. To leave no trace, he can no longer use his phone and his credit cards. In the meantime he uncovers foul intrigues of the pharmaceutical industry.

Boyd’s purpose is to demonstrate to the reader that identity is fragile. But “Ordinary thunderstorms” does not only explain ideas of identity, it rather gives us hidden information, such as about pharmacology, the Thames, homelessness in London and the formation of clouds. As well the novel leads the reader through a variety of strata of metropolitan life in London. William Boyd tells his thriller from constantly changing perspectives. Of course there is Adam Kindred who tells his story from his point of view. As well there is the prostitute Mhouse, the policewoman Rita Nashe, the contract killer Jonjo Case and the pharmaceutical company’s general manager Ingram Fryzer. They live all together in London in segregated social classes. I think, because of this writing stile Boyd had success in his intention, to show the reader London’s facets.

For me it sounds illogical, that Adam Kindred runs away and hides himself after being suspected. Why does not he pay a lawyer, who resolves the misunderstanding? Kindred must have known, when he decided to live in London’s underground, that he will never be Adam Kindred again. I believe, that Boyd wants to show his readers the fragility of someone’s social identity by letting Adam living in underground. There are more connections that are not plausible and the end is almost like a fairy tale. However, I do not resent Boyd this. “Ordinary Thunderstorms” is a fiction novel and it is almost impossible that such a bloodcurdling story does not seem just a little bit unrealistic. But what I do not like is, that Boyd drags the pharmaceutical companies in general in the mud. According to that, the reader thinks that drug companies are always intent on their own advantages and try to bring their new drug on the market, no matter how many children, who have taken the drug, already died.

The students in year twelve are concerned with the subject area “Living in a metropolis” in their English class. Ordinary Thunderstorms is a fitting example for a novel to be read in class because Boyd leads the reader through London and shows him the different places and facets of the metropolis. In addition to that the author delivers inside into the different social classes of modern London. As well he demonstrates that in every city are secrets hidden in the smutty underbelly, be it the scheming lust for power of pharmaceutical companies, the secrets which stand behind the 50000 to 60000 dead bodies, which the river police holds out to the Thames every year, or the brutal and mysterious work of contract killers.

In summary, William Boyd confronts the reader of “Ordinary Thunderstorms” with questions of fraud, lies, existence and identity. Even though connections are sometimes not realistic, I enjoyed reading the novel. Boyd gives an overview of living in modern London and at the same time the plot is exciting. But I actually do not like the sudden ending and I criticize that Boyd decries the pharmaceutical industry. Hence, I like “Ordinary thunderstorms”, but it is not one of my favourite books I have ever read. It is informative and I would recommend it to someone who is either in year 12 and discusses “Living in a metropolis” in class or someone who has not enough cash to visit London in the holidays.

Ordinary Thunderstorms

Ordinary Thunderstorms from William Boyd is a very fascinating crime thriller about the life of a man, Adam Kindred, which completely changed after he made one momentous decision.

Because of a stupid coincidence, the well-behaved and intelligent climatologist Adam is taken for a murderer and he becomes the prime suspect of a homicide case. Suddenly his whole life changed when he tries to hide and goes underground.

The point of view in the book is always switching between the embittered killer and ex-Iraksoldier Jonjo, the prostitute Mhouse, the self-confident police-woman Rita, the Pharma-Boss Ingram Fryzer and of course Adam Kindred himself. Because of this kind of storytelling, the plotline is very rapid and diversified and the reader really gets a good impression of the development of the main characters. Especially Adam Kindreds character changes within the story, from the hunted one to the hunter, who tries to find out what is going on around him and why he is wanted by so many people.

I think the best aspect of the book is the description of the city with all its facets and of the society. The story shows another part of our society, which many people do not know, the demonstration of the life on the streets and in the skid rows is very realistic and oppressive. On the basis of the role of Adam Kindred, William Boyd shows us how to disappear in a metropolis like London. Every year up to 200 000 people are disappearing in Great Britain, they stop using credit cards and cell phones to do not leave any marks and hints.

“…he had sensed instinctively that the only way to avoid detection in a modern twenty-first century city was to take no advantage of the services it offered – telephonic, financial, social, transportational, welfare-related and so on. If you made no calls, paid no bills, had no address, never voted,…, made no credit card transactions or used cash-point machines, never fell ill or asked asked for state support, then you slipped beneath the modern world’s cognizance.” (p. 55, Ordinary Thunderstorms)

But how can you to survive in a foreign city, without contacts and money? This is the most important topic of the book. The combination of that difficulties and the the process of finding the answer of the crime story, are keeping the novel exciting during the whole 403 pages.

The book animates to think about many problems of our modern society and new issues of growing megacities. It is about the fragility of a human identity, when you have to change your complete behavior and living standards because of a disastrous accident.

What I like is, that the story shows, that animosity, cheating and avidity as well as friendship, compassion and helpfulness is represented in every social class.

William Boyd tells us what it means to lose everything and how to find new ways how to live and survive.

Mira Linzenmeyer

Book review

“Ordinary Thunderstorms”

The novel “Ordinary Thunderstorms“ by William Boyd, tells a story about a climatologist who is suspected of murder and has to fight a pharmaceutical industry.

When the human is well equipped with a credit card, a career and a health insurance he imagines to be save, however only one negligence can change everything. In this case it was the longing for sex, nothing else was essential, to overthrow a secure existence, a happy marriage and a live in wealth. The novel “Ordinary Thunderstorms“ is about that overthrow.

The main character in this story is named Adam Kindred, who is a climatologist. His student debauched him in the cloud chamber. This accident resulted in a divorce from his wife and in getting fired. It was time to start a new live for Adam Kindred, so he applied for a job in London. His chances seemed good, he was young and intelligent.  What was the worst that could happen?

The book “Ordinary Thunderstorms“ is all about one coincidence. The coincidence where Adam Kindred accidentally gets into a murder case. He follows a man, who left his documents in a cafe, home and finds the stranger bleeding to death in his bed. Adam Kindred, who is in panic, makes the big mistake to pull out the knife that was stuck in the stranger’s chest. By doing this he leaves his fingerprints behind. Since he fears that he can never prove that he is innocent and in addition to that the killer wants the documents that Adam kept, he sees no alternative than to go underground. However, how is it possible for someone to disappear in London?

This book is full of different perspectives. You get to know many different points of view from different characters.

The main question William Boyd wrote about in his book is: How does a person handle different life situations and what impact do they have on that person?

Adam Kindred is able to jump easily from one society into the other. Adam only has to climb over a fence and suddenly he lives on an unknown property next to the Thames and belongs to the homeless.

Adam thinks that living as a homeless person is something like going camping. Therefore he buys the typical camping equipment: Gas cooker, camping mat and a sleeping bag. That is how he finally becomes one of the homeless. Adam has to learn how to eat from garbage cans and how to scrounge. He even steals a blind man’s stick because pretending to be blind is the easiest way to get money.

Adam also knows that he is not allowed to use his mobile phone or his credit card. Otherwise somebody could find him.                                                                                                                         It is scary how much information you reveal by using your phone or your credit card.                        I noticed that as soon as you stop using your cell phone and your credit card, no one can find you anymore; however on the other hand it makes you wonder how much influence and power these small everyday utensils have. This information was shocking.

Even though Adam tries his best to be undiscoverable the killer is close in on Adam. As a consequence Adam has to change his identity and location all the time:

At first he becomes “John 1603” and joins a sect that does not believe in Jesus Christ but in Johannes. Adam Kindred was even offered the job as the manager of this sect.

A little later the homeless Adam moves in with a prostitute and her son, in a district which is scary, even at daytime.

In the end he takes on the new name Primo Belem and starts working in a hospital and falls in love with a policewoman.

Adam is able to adjust his new roles easily. However it seems as if Adam stays the same person from the inside, only his outer appearance changes. Does a person always stay the same?

Throughout the story Adam Kindred changes from the hunted person to the hunter. To prove that he is innocent he has to determine the background of the murder.

The investigations lead to a pharmaceutical company that is on its way to produce an asthma medication, however in their testing-phase a few children died but no one knew about that.

The book “Ordinary Thunderstorms” describes London and the Thames very well. It feels like you can actually see what Adam sees.                                                                                                               It also is very interesting to get a glance at all the different societies. There are the homeless people, the people from the pharmaceutical company, the policemen and of course Adam Kindred who shows you every society there is.                                                                                                  On the one hand I liked the idea, that the reader always knows everything and is able to stay on top of things, on the other hand I knew that the story would finish with a happy ending. William Boyd wrote “Ordinary Thunderstorms” as a realistic book. He even said in an interview once that this book is not pinned down on a certain time period.

Throughout the story Adam Kindred stayed the same person. He had many ups and downs but that never influenced his character. I think that such extreme situations will change your personality and will have an influence on your behavior. Therefore I think that some parts of the book are not as realistic as they seem.

Maria Aumiller

Book review   

By Tonio Kawase

William Boyd

Ordinary Thunderstorms

Ordinary Thunderstorms, written by William Boyd in 2009 as his 10th book, is a novel  classifiable into the thriller genre, about the conspiracy connected to the launch of a new pharmaceutical against asthma.

Adam Kindred, a relatively young climatologist, makes the acquaintance with a developer of the pharmaceutical group Calenture-Deutz, called Dr. Wang, in an Italian restaurant in Chelsea. He strikes up a brief conversation with the man at the next table, who departs, leaving a folder behind, seemingly including secret datas about a new drug. Adam decides to return it to Wang. After entering the man’s flat, he finds his dining companion lying on the fading away with a knife in his throat, which Adam stupidly pulls out.

With his fingerprints and other evidence affiliating him to this brutish murder of a well-respected medical scientist, Adam flees panic-stricken.

S

Ordinary Thunderstorms By William Boyd Thriller 404 pages Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009 7,95 Euros (paperback)          ISBN: 978 1 4088 0606 7

hortly after a scavenger hunt involving a multinational pharmaceutical company the psychopathic assassin Jonjo, an ex-Iraq mercenary being crazy of fighting and engaged by them, begins.

William Boyd, the scottish author, who was born 1952 in Ghana and grew up there and in Nigeria, takes you on a turbulent tour through london and its facings from the sunny side to the underground, from upperclass doctors to low class‘s ghettoes.

These insights into the city‘s geographical and social structures do offer you a very multilayer reading experience subliminally connecting issues like CCTV in public areas or “the missing people problem“ with e.g. the chase of the main protagonist, Adam Kindred.

But most notably this book does not just entertain or thrill, if carefully read it leads the reader into contemplatively thoughts about social issues, problems of nowadays digital technologies in workaday live and even about the modern citizen‘s identity.

Although you learn a lot about about Britain‘s Capital, especially about the underworld, more than basic knowledge in its culture and primarily geographic should be in your mind. Otherwise you won‘t be able to understand the story and its facets completely and the same problem as I had will befall you e.g when acknowledgment about the circumstances of particular quarters is asked to have a better imagination of the story.

The book‘s main theme probably is the combination misbehaviour, acquisitiveness and avidity in many parts of the pharmaceutical branch, espacially in combination with the difficult accreditation of new drugs, which guarantee high benfits to the producer. So in Boyd‘s fiction the “bad“ part of this novel belongs to it, describing a company and its investor not only deciding about life or death of ill people. But also there are many other importantly remarkable subject matters as poverty embedding social segregation, religious sects, and illegal prostitutes. Linked to the book‘s title “ordinary thunderstorms“, which is described before the first page as “having the capacity to transform themselves into storms“, the author may wants to show us these partially relatively unacquainted issues, because they might grow into “storms“, trying to let us notice them before things get worse.

Maybe his intention also is to lead us to be more active in finding and solving problems in our everyday life‘s environment.

In the end you have to decide to read this very thrilling novel on any accounts it will enchain you until you have done reading it as well “Ordinary Thunderstorms“ will guarantee you some entertainment and maybe afford some thought-provoking impulse. If you like a bit lunatic novels full of pulsating action and a bit stereotypical setting, including the bad pharmaceutical business, killers, and other fringe groups, but giving you an interestingly different view about London and its society, buy it! If not or if it‘s too much grab some Charles Dickens Christmas Carol and enjoy your christmas vacation in a warm homely place.

In this spirit

A Merry Christmas

Book review: “Ordinary Thunderstorms” by William Boyd

William Boyd’s thriller “Ordinary Thunderstorms”, published in 2009, is not one of those normal thrillers you can think of when you talk about reading an everyday thriller. It is an interesting story that brings different aspects together and combines them into an exciting story.

        Adam Kindred, the main character in the story, arrives in London in order to find a new job. He accidently gets involved in a murder and, from that point on, tries to vanish in that big city, as he is wanted by the police as the real murder.  Through that dilemma he turns from an affluent member of society to a beggar who lives under the worst conditions.

        The main plot of the story is about the production of a new drug called Zembla-4 that is supposed to cure asthma. However, during the trial period it becomes responsible for the death of several young patients. William Boyd leads the reader through the story from different points of view. All in all, it is a story about Aram Kindred, who meets different people of all social classes, always trying to find himself. These different people, who are involved in Adam’s story, are also described along with their ways of life. This gives the whole story a high degree of information. It enables the reader to feel involved. Boyd’s detailed information about his characters shows the reader the differences in their lives, owing to the different social classes they come from. The character of Adam is somewhere in between these classes, where he is always struggling to find his identity and wishing to get back to his old life, where he had a set position in society. William Boyd himself says that he tried to keep his characters as real as possible to make it easy for the reader to believe that his fictional creation could be a story happening every day.

        Within the story Boyd gives a detailed view of London. He introduces different districts of London with their own characteristics including the different people there. The author says he has chosen this city for the setting of his book, because London is his hometown and probably the city he knows  best. Moreover, London is the best example of a diverse population: social differences, multicultural communities, the young and the old, etc.. London, Boyd says, is ‘gigantic and unique’. Boyd’s motivation to write the story came from the river Thames, where 50 to 60 dead bodies are found in a week. The river has had a huge impact on his story and it is also the central point of the setting.

        Even though “Ordinary Thunderstorms” seems to be a thriller, its general theme is the identity of an individual. It also has a moral: “Even good people do wrong things”. Not everything is as it seems. William Boyd supports his thesis through the main character, who is an innocent man and who, out of the blue from one day to the next, has to transform his entire life, because of a miserable misunderstanding

In conclusion, I would recommend the book for anyone who likes to read an exciting story with a lot of background information and different characters (in their social and cultural aspects). The book is written in an easy style. It is not a thriller in the normal sense, but it is a story about the different aspects of city life. Even though the conclusion of the story is rather a bit sudden and unexpected, the book, in my opinion, has a successful and interesting story.

                                                                                             

                                                                       Sinja Heusch, SIII