Ordinary Thunderstorms...!!(William Boyd) Review

'Dripping with ideas and impressive in its scope ...swept along by the thundering narrative tide.' Observer'A thrill of hide and seek among London's low life.Think John Buchan meets Jon le Carre.' Tatler


The novel “Ordinary Thunderstorms” is written by William Boyd and was first published in Great Britain 2009. It encloses 403 pages and costs 5,99£ in a soft-cover edition. The story is about the inconvenient side of living in a metropolis.

The main character Adam Kindred, a climatologist from America, is in London for a job interview. Afterwards he has a conversation with Philipp Wang, who leaves his documents in the restaurant. Adam trys to hand them back. As he arrives in Wang's apartment, he finds him dead with a bread knife in his side. Adam unplugs the knife and leaves his finger prints behind on the knife. This act is the beginning of a long hide and seek conducting Adam to the most different parts of London. While he is fleeing from the police, Adam gets to know several other characters and realizes the big complot he is, against his wishes, now involved in.

William Boyd focuses in his novel on several main themes: On the one hand he illustrates miscellaneous characters and the question of identity and on the other hand he puts the morally conflict of profit or health. Furthermore one important theme showed by Boyd is the special side of living in a metropolis.

The implementation of the variety of the characters is especially shown by the two women Rita Nashe and Mhouse. Two conflictive personalities who both meet Adam have a very different social background. Mhouse as a prostitute knows the dark side of London and has to struggle for her and her son's life. In contrast Rita, the charming police women, fights against the illegal and dark side of the city. Furthermore the persons “Jonjo”, Ingram Fryzer and Vladimir, all from different classes of society, are terrificly portrayed.

The question of identity isn't shown the first time by William Boyd. He seems to be fascinated by the idea of surviving undetected in a modern world of CCTV cameras, mobile phones and credit cards. The chance to have no identity or the one from someone else is only given in large cities like London, New York or Hamburg. But if somebody loses his identity, maybe a new problem will appear: The person will probably come into an identity crisis, like Adam does.

In my opinion William Boyd's “Ordinary Thunderstorms” is a very exciting thriller. Boyd uses many points of view of the different characters to make the story more interesting. He impresses the reader by a complex and multifarious plot and gives one the chance to make up own thoughts about a potential ending.

Happy Reading