Four Iron In The Soul by Lawrence Donegan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Top class book about the real life of a journeyman European tour pro, Ross Drummond, and his caddie-for-the-season Lawrence Donegan. The book rightly made both a little more famous (quite a lot in Donegan's case, it effectively launched his career). Drummond is a decent golfer bit not quite good enough to make it, although Donegan's account is coincidentally of Drummond's best season. Donegan – a Guardian columnist – wants to portray Drummond as a Don Quixote figure, tilting at impossible windmills while he Donegan wants to be his Pancho, his practical assistant. It doesn't quite work out like that.

What emerges is a picture of real hidden poverty alongside obscene wealth; caddies who rarely find decent places to sleep at night, who fight to get on of seven places in a minibus from Spain to Germany or whatever. It's a poignant read, it's enlightening, it's funny, and above all it's brilliantly written.

No golfer should ever be allowed to turn pro without having to read this book, then being obliged to answer questions based on it.

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Headhunters by Jo Nesbø
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not a Harry Hole thriller this time, but an excellent thriller all the same. This is one of those books where you've no idea who the goodies and the baddies are, and you're kept guessing all the time.

Roger Brown is a headhunter, and a good one at that, even he is also arrogant in the extreme; it's from his viewpoint that the story's told. It's uncomfortable at times being asked to identify with such an unpleasant character, the only consolation being that some of the others are even worse. Whatever, Brown gets himself into a situation with Clas Greve, a Dutchman who seems always to be one step ahead of him, something that Brown hasn't experienced before.

Before long, things have turned violent, very violent, as they tend to do with Nesbo books. Expect plot twists aplenty rather than character development, but I read it cover-to-cover on two shortish flights. Excellent entertainment.

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