"Flagey in Winter" by Simon Mundy

 

An ensemble comedy of manners, this novel returns us to the characters established in its precursor, Flagey in Autumn, the staff and customers of the Cafe Franck in Place Flagey in Brussels. 

In early January, the weather is cold and icy, so when Elise, skiing with her brother Artur in Bolsano, Italy, ends up in hospital, her lover Fidel is summoned to her side. It being Sunday, and he being too old to be fluent with making travel arrangements online, the friends pitch in to help ... and some decide to accompany him. Funded by Russian Nikita, who has closed her gallery for the time being, Fidel is sent with Mercedes (Nikita's employee) and her new boyfriend (a new character) Rory, a Scottish journalist. Later they will be joined by Catrina and her boyfriend barista Patrice, by Nikita herself, by Esko the Finnish MEP and his new girlfriend French filmstar Amelie, and by Agnestina who is newly out of love with Flamand and whose laptop was used to make the bookings.

Back in Brussels, Bruno is bested by unaccredited lobbyist Tyron Wangstrutt. 

I found this sequel slightly disappointing. Like love, the first book had the excitement of discovering new characters, while this had the stale feeling you get when the joy of fresh love starts to become routine. The only pairing that still sparkled was that of Esko and Amelie and that was only because Amelie's filmstar antics made Esko (and me) permanently on edge as to whether he would be dumped or not.

However, it was fun. I am developing affections for each of them (except, perhaps, Saskia). I hope poor Mariana finds love soon! Flamand? 

I wondered whether the split setting quite worked: the joy of the first book had been that all the shenanigans had been focused tightly in one place.

The third person omniscient viewpoint enables the reader to eavesdrop on the thoughts of each of the characters and the constant flitting from one to another keeps the narrative from flagging. It was a very easy read (two days) and there were many moments of quiet humour. I enjoyed reading this book.

I look forward to reading the sequel, Flagey in Spring.

Selected quotes:

• "If in doubt, procrastinate." (Sunday: First thing)
• "Museums bored her even more than being bored." (Sunday carried on: Cold wine for a cold Sunday)
• "She growled in frustration, a scarring contralto growl like parts of an engine disintegrating" (Sunday carried on: Cold wine for a cold Sunday)
• "Old age was what happened to other people, like being born a man." (Friday: What might have been)

July 2026; 239 pages
Published by Hay Press in 2024

This review was written by

the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling 

and The Kids of God

"Flagey in Autumn" by Simon Mundy

 An ensemble novel, much like the Scotland Street series of Alexanderr McCall Smith, such as 44, Scotland Street (2005) and its sequels such as Espresso Tales (2005), Love Over Scotland (2006), The World According to Bertie (2007) and The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (2008).

Flagey in Autumn (and its sequels) is about the customers of the Cafe Franck on Place Flagey in Brussels. It starts on a Saturday and ends on the following Saturday. The first few sections are inevitably crowded with details: we are meeting most of the cast in a few pages. I resorted to making notes. But by the time Sunday had arrived, I was confident I knew who was who. From then on, as the plot lines wove and intersected, I enjoyed the ride.

It was an entertaining book with some nice character development. I look forward to meeting the cast again in the sequels, Flagey in Winter and Flagey in Spring. 

Selected quotes:

• "To go back to Derby was the sort of slow death reserved for spinsters in a Victorian novel." (Saturday: Catrina mulls)
• "She thought of herself as a bundle of bones with random splatterings of flesh, as though they had been slapped on by a disinterested sculptor." (Saturday: Oops)
• "Fidel could talk about football – it was incumbent to his image as an intellectual with his instincts still rooted in the people – but the actual watching of a game truly horrified him" (Sunday: Above and Below)
• "The professor bellowed. It was the sound of an enraged intellect or, as his grinning colleague Wilfred Tinnemans decided two doors down, the sound an ox makes when the cowman slips a tight rubber ring round its balls. The meeting was going to be a lot of fun." (Monday: Elise considers)
• "It was a relief not to have a lover who, like the French girls, knew everything about love-making and marked him out of ten while he put his clothes on." (Wednesday: Considerations)
• "She was not a woman to walk on air. There was a slight lack of co-ordination about her movements that suggested that, had she tried to walk on air, she would have fallen off." (Wednesday: New jobs)
• "He looked like an elderly tomcat who had found an endless supply of cream." (Thursday: Late lecture)
• "Those with nothing more pressing to do: foreigners between meetings, writers between pages, artists between brush strokes or pausing in the search for random objects to install. And students." (Thursday: Ruptures in paradise)
• “Politics is not about great plans; it is about great management of the unexpected which makes everyone think you had great plans” (Friday: No time for contemplation)

July 2026; 256 pages in the print version

Published in April 2015 by Hay Press

I read the kindle version

This review was written by

the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling 

and The Kids of God

Also by Simon Mundy and reviewed in this blog: 

• The Fragile Land: a new take on the Arthurian legend

Synopsis: spoiler alert

Dutch Saskia bumps into English Catrina, causing her to spill tea on Spanish Mercedes. Because she refuses to apologise, barista Patrice bans her from the cafe. He then turns his attention to Catrina and that night they will end up in his bed. Fidel, a Professor of rhetoric, watches ... and recognises Elise, another cafe worker, from the bar in the jazz club on Friday night. Fidel and Elise will also start an affair that night after he discovers that she has moved in to the flat below his.

Saskia has lunch in another cafe. Leaving it, she sees Catina and Patrice across the square. They converge with hostile intentions but collide with bystander fat Louise, knocking her over. Saskia helps Louise back to her flat and spontaneously embarks upon her first lesbian experience.

Esko, a Finnish MEP, goes to a film festival and leaves with French film star Amelie. They are photographed kissing. By Tuesday they are in the papers and Amelie is besieged by reporters inside Esko's flat. Esko's wife Rikka, a Finnish MP in Helsinki, dumps him over the phone.

Mariana, Esko's parliamentary assistant, is in love with him and angry about his affair with Amelie. She tries to seduce Esko but fails. He takes her to lunch and gives her a job working with Writers Against Injustice.

Fidel's office at the university has been tidied and painted. He is furious. Elise persuades him to start the Utterly Free University, where lectures will be online and available via podcast, to be funded by advertising. He hates new technology but also hates lecturing in person so he resigns.

Catrina, who is yet another parliamentary assistant, hates her Tory boss so she asks a Welsh Nationalist Green MEP for a job ... and gets it.

Mercedes is turned down for a job with an Italian lobbying company and instead takes a job with Nikita, the Russian owner of an art gallery.

Agnestina is looking for Flamand in the cafe but doesn't see him because he is hidden behind fat Louise. When they finally meet again, each thinks the other jilted them. The situation is resolved when Patrice shows them what happened on the cafe's CCTV.

Esko is elected head of his parliamentary group because of the way he has successfully dealt with the media in the last week.