Friday 29 December 2017

Review: IQ

IQ IQ by Joe Ide
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When a publisher describes a first novel as "a combustible cocktail of Bosch, Hiaasen and Conan Doyle" they are asking for trouble, and not just because of the confusion of characters and authors in the blurb... Unless, of course, the novel is as good as IQ.

In Isaiah Quintabe, Joe Ide has created a likeable protagonist, a 'street' investigator whose deductive reasoning and observational talents do indeed echo Sherlock Holmes. The writing, plot and dialogue, is excellent and merits the comparison with Michael Connelly. From the prologue which introduces IQ and his abilities straight away, through a skilful handling of interwoven timelines Ide proves to be a nimble and entertaining writer. The plot alternates between 2005, Isaiah's coming of age, his 'origin story' as an investigator, and 2013 as he investigates the attempted murder of a rap artist. Along the way we meet Dodson, the likeable rogue sidekick, and a gallery of music business hangers-on all of whom bring depth and humour to the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and look forward to reading the follow up, Righteous, soon.

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Review: Corpus

Corpus Corpus by Rory Clements
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was hard work. When a publisher advertises a novel 'for fans of Robert Harris' I expect more. Harris is a master at taking historical events, building believable characters, bringing dialogue to life and creating real suspense - even when the reader knows the outcome. Rory Clements doesn't.

The synopsis was very promising - the abdication crisis, Europe on the brink of war. A skilful novelist could get into the heads of Stanley Baldwin, Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson (and the suspicions of Nazism around them), George VI. A novelist can go places that a historian cannot. What were they thinking? What were the motivations? Instead we get a central character, Tom Wilde, Cambridge history professor, who is as tedious and unsympathetic a protagonist as I have read in a long time. We get a cardboard cutout Baldwin. We get Nazi and Communist caricatures. We learn less about the crisis than a quick Wikipedia search would provide. A tangental plot involving Spanish gold which adds nothing. And dialogue of which Dan Brown would be proud (Brown can create suspense however...).

Very disappointing. I struggled to finish it and may have done just to see if some character, the Midsomer policeman perhaps, would ask Tom Wilde who he was and why he was here...

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Sunday 17 December 2017

Review: Sleeping Beauties

Sleeping Beauties Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There's nothing like a big, thick Stephen King novel, and this is nothing like a big, thick Stephen King novel....

Actually, that's not true. 'Sleeping Beauties' is big and thick (700+ pages) and is very like a Stephen King novel, possibly too like some of his previous books but that doesn't make it a bad book. I enjoyed it a lot. King excels at long narratives with large casts of character. When it works (The Stand, IT) it works brilliantly. In the odd case (Tommyknockers) when it doesn't work, the results can be a car-crash (and not the horribly graphically described car-crash a Stephen King would excel at...). Like 'Under the Dome', 'Sleeping Beauties' is closer to the former than the latter but, unlike 'Under the Dome' doesn't, for me, have and ending which lets it down.

The book is written with Owen King and, not having read Steve's younger son's work, I am not qualified to say how much of the book, or which parts, Owen writes. 'Sleeping Beauties' reads like a Stephen King novel although it there are fewer horror-tropes and more fairytale fantasy elements than usual (perhaps down to Owen?). There is also a very strong feminist subtext.

Like 'Under the Dome' the plot here involves a small town subjected to supernatural, unexplained events. In 'Sleeping Beauties', the women of the town fall into a deep, cocooned sleep and the men fight over whose fault it is. The phenomenon is worldwide but the focus of the story is on the town of Dooling and much of the action is concentrated in the nearby women's prison, a setting which allows the Kings to examine male/female relationships in a more black and white way; there are few shades of grey and little in the way of allegory. While this can become a little heavy-handed at times, the current exposure of sexual predators in the political and film worlds suggests the exaggeration may be warranted.

So, not King's best but a very entertaining big, thick novel.

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Sunday 29 October 2017

Review: Hotel California

Hotel California Hotel California by Barney Hoskyns
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"It's not easy when you take someone who's basically right out of puberty and who becomes a millionaire responsible to no one."

Barney Hoskyns's 'Hotel California' is the story of the late '60s rise of country rock and its descent into late '70s AOR; idealism into hedonism; dope smoking, laid back hippies into cokehead, egotistical control freaks. Of course, there are those who were already halfway there even at the Laurel Canyon scene beginnings - Stephen Stills comes off particularly badly - and it would be difficult to make it in music without a strong ego, but Hoskyns's story is largely a tale of innocence and experience.

This is not a primer for California music; the book is almost novelistic and has a huge cast of characters and presupposes the reader's familiarity with many of them, not just the Crosby's, Stills', Nash's and Young's but also the Warren Zevon's and Lowell George's. Hoskyns takes these characters and weaves their individual threads into a complete tapestry of the times, albeit one which becomes badly torn and frayed at the end. He takes us from the idealistic Laurel Canyon community, the singer-songwriters at the Troubadour, an extended family who wrote together and played on each others albums, at time when record companies supported 'artists', to back-stabbing, suspicious superstars who tried to outdo and undermine each other at every turn. And, along the way, the casualties like Gram Parsons and Judee Sill.

I enjoyed the book, and revisiting the music, immensely and would recommend it to anyone with more than a passing interest in the period. It is much more than the subtitle, "The True-life Adventures of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Mitchell, Taylor, Browne, Ronstadt, Geffen, the Eagles, and Their Many Friends", would suggest and I look forward to picking up Hoskyns's "Small Town" which I hope expands on The Band's story in the same way.

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Wednesday 18 October 2017

Review: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I bought this book 18 years ago on it's release in hardback in 1999. And never read it. I don't know why... I grew up with King, one of his 'constant readers' and, while his output was slightly hit and miss in the '90s (I loved the Green Mile serial novel; wasn't overly impressed by Bag of Bones; I know I read Insomnia but can't remember anything about it - perhaps I fell asleep?), The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon should have drawn me in straight away - King is a master at writing about childhood and survival and nightmares...

I finally pulled it off the shelf after hearing a passing reference to it on a podcast. And it is excellent, classic Stephen King, up there with The Body and IT in how it gets into the experience of being a child in a scary world. The plot is a simple one - 9 year-old Patricia McFarland steps off the path for a pee while hiking in the forest and gets lost - and the book is a very slim volume in King terms, but it a wonderful book, part adventure, part horror, part fairy story. As Tricia heads deeper into the forest, and deeper into despair, she is accompanied, at intervals, by Tom Gordon, her favourite Red Sox pitcher (and a real-life baseball player), who she suspects is not really there, and a more malevolent presence, always just out of sight, which she suspects really is there.

I loved this book and the last line is a real tearjerker and one of King's best.

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Tuesday 17 October 2017

Review: A Lesson in Violence

A Lesson in Violence A Lesson in Violence by Jordan Harper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An astounding, visceral, violent novel populated by "..women dumb and vicious, ... men with cruel eyes and meth stains on their hearts", A Lesson in Violence (She Rides Shotgun) is the story of a father and daughter, on the run from a death warrant. Nate McCluskey is a small-time criminal who has run foul of a supremacist gang who won't rest until he and his family are dead, but really this is the story of his daughter, eleven year-old Polly and how she comes to cope with, and thrive in, the tough underworld into which she is thrust.

Jordan Harper writes taut, brutal, poetic prose, the sort of prose that hits the reader in the gut. The plot is gripping. The characters are real - Nate McCluskey is not a hero but he is driven by his love for his daughter. Polly, initially scared, comes to terms with, possibly relish, the harsh life she shares with her father; because she loves him. And then there's the bear...

"The bear put a friendly paw up to the cage. The rooster pecked it. It said fuck you in chicken."

It is hard to believe this is Jordan Harper's debut. A Lesson in Violence is an accomplished novel, one of the best this year.


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Friday 6 October 2017

Review: It

It It by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

IT is one of my favourite Stephen King novels although I haven't read it in a long time. I decided to listen to IT on audiobook in preparation for the film adaptation - I didn't quite make it but enjoyed both immensely. Growing up, IT, Salem's Lot and The Stand were my favourites. King excels when he has a large cast, especially one with child protagonists, married to a great plot. Sometimes, Tommyknockers is an example, it doesn't work but, when it does, there are few to beat him.

Memory plays tricks. I remembered almost every plot point and scene in IT but was convinced that the adult, 1985 plot bookended the children, 1958 story - they are actually intercut, the story of the Losers' first battle with the evil presence in Derry being old in flashback interweaving with their return to face IT again as grownups. As the two stories race to a conclusion the time jumps increase in pace and frequency, bashing up against each other in a frenzied climax.

I love this huge book and loved revisiting IT. IT is not perfect and there is one ill-judged scene towards the end which is more jarring than it was 30 years ago (and which the movie sensibly side-stepped) but IT is frightening and entertaining. I may revisit Salem's Lot to see if I remember it as well. It's about vampires, isn't it...?

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Tuesday 5 September 2017

Review: American War

American War American War by Omar El Akkad
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In 2074, the Second American Civil War breaks out. Many coastal areas of the USA, and around the world, have been claimed by rising sea levels, a group of southern states secede from the Union over the outlawing of fossil fuels and war is declared. Sarat Chesnutt is six years old when the war starts and the book is her story, as told, many years later, by her nephew.

Written by Egyptian-born Canadian journalist, Omar el Akkad, the novel can be read as an allegory on the war on terror. Sarat, born in Louisiana of mixed race parents, is displaced by the war and spends her childhood and early teens in a refugee camp where she is gradually radicalised by a charismatic leader of the ‘Red’ southern states and used in the fight against the ‘Blue’ union majority.

By depicting climate change as the pivotal, and perhaps only, factor leading to the war, the author can possibly be accused of over-simplification - it would appear that racism, for instance, has been eliminated; there is certainly no overtly racist language or characters in the novel and religious differences too have little impact on the plot - but many of his scenes are harrowing and thought provoking.

“At first he’d asked her if she preferred to make herself a weapon, to become what the Northerners called homicide bombers.”

It is shocking when the ‘heroine’ of the novel, who has at least some Katniss Everdeen-like characteristics, is offered this choice. This is near-future America, and Americans are suicide bombers… The point is reinforced by the reverence in which the south holds Julia Templestowe, a southern martyr who wore a ‘farmer’s suit’ and blew herself up assassinating the American president. The narrator also tells us at the start of the story that, following the end of formal hostilities, on Reunification Day, “one of the South’s last remaining rebels managed to sneak into the Union capital and unleash the sickness that cast the country into a decade of death” - the plague kills almost ten times the eleven million who died in the war.

Nor does the south hold a monopoly on atrocities. At the beginning of the book we are told that Carolina has essentially become a wasteland due to a chemical or germ attack by the Blue states and is “a walled hospice” - the reference to the wall is not coincidental. The North has at some point lost control of their ‘warring Birds’, drones which then randomly rain down death. The North still practices waterboarding on detainees in a Guantanamo-like interrogation centre. There is an attack on a camp in which innocents are targeted in the most brutal way in a search for ‘insurgents’.

El Akkad may have ‘simplified’ but doing so allows him to focus on key issues that should be shocking. I am not an American but it seems to me that, given the turn that western society, and US society in particular, has taken recently, perhaps the events of the novel are not as shocking as they should be; this future is not as far off as it should be. The book has flaws but the story and the issues it raises will stay with me for some time.

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Sunday 9 July 2017

Review: Dodgers

Dodgers Dodgers by Bill Beverly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It has taken me a few weeks to ponder this novel before reviewing it - the reason being it initially struck me as one of the best things I have read, certainly in the last couple of years, and I am always a little suspicious of really strong first reactions. But, having re-read passages and spent some time thinking about 'Dodgers', I am convinced that this book will be one I will return to again and again.

Bill Beverly's prose is sublime, his dialogue convincingly authentic and his characters, particularly his 'hero', East, whose coming of age story this is, well-drawn and realistic. 'Dodgers' is a novel of LA gangs, drug-dealing and murder but much, much more than that. It is the story of a Quest and shares a lot with 'Lord of the Rings' or, perhaps more closely, 'The Searchers'. Like them, the object of the quest is not what it initially appears to be, it is actually a search for self.

East, a teenage gangbanger, deemed responsible for a police raid on a crack den, is sent by his uncle and gang leader, to murder a witness in an upcoming trial, accompanied by three others including his volatile, dangerous younger brother. As East travels from LA to Wisconsin he discovers a country he has never imagined, let alone seen, peopled by a race alien to him, and he discovers who he is. The further east he goes the more he comes to understand East.

There is little light in 'Dodgers' but it is hauntingly, achingly beautiful. I look forward to whatever Bill Beverly does next.

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Friday 16 June 2017

Review: Darktown

Darktown Darktown by Thomas Mullen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In 1948 the mayor of Atlanta, Georgia hired eight black police officers in a pact to secure votes in black neighbourhoods. The officers, at least one of whom was a veteran of World War II, were restricted to patrolling black areas of the city and could not, under any circumstances, arrest white people. This startling hypocrisy extended to the officers’ squad room, the basement of the local YMCA as segregation meant that they were prohibited from entering the main police headquarters.

Thomas Mullen’s ‘Dark Town’ is an intelligent and literate thriller set in Atlanta just after the city has, controversially, employed these first eight ‘coloured’ police officers. It is a time when “antilynching legislation … kept failing in Washington” and the commanding officer concentrates on “trying to make sure his Negro officers didn’t screw up while also trying to keep the white officers from flat-out attacking his “men.” ”

Lucius Boggs and his partner Tommy Smith witness a white driver crash into a lamppost in ‘Dark Town’, the negro quarter they patrol. The driver, whose young black female passenger appears to have been beaten, refuses to wait while Boggs contacts the ‘real’ police. When the girl later turns up dead Boggs decides to investigate, strictly against the regulations. Meanwhile, Dennis Rakestraw, a white police officer, also a war veteran, becomes increasingly disillusioned by the actions of his openly racist partner, Lionel Dunlow. And, when it becomes apparently that Dunlow has some connection to the car driver and, by extension, the murdered girl, Rake’s and Boggs’ investigations overlap.

Mullen’s characters and setting are incredibly well realised. The Atlanta background feels real and the racism experienced by the black officers, overt and casual, is authentic. The characters, even the worst of them, are rounded with understandable, albeit in many cases disagreeable, motivations. The resentment and suspicion felt by both the white and black communities towards each other, that suspicion extended to the ‘Uncle Tom’ officers by many of their neighbours, the ‘threat’ felt by whites witnessing the expansion of the black middle-class - the author paints all of these vividly. A satisfying and thought provoking historical novel about a period I knew very little about. Highly recommended.

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Tuesday 13 June 2017

Review: Since We Fell

Since We Fell Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“On a Tuesday in May, in her thirty-fifth year, Rachel shot her husband dead. He stumbled backward with an odd look of confirmation on his face, as if some part of him had always known she’d do it.”

‘Since We Fell’ opens in a way I have come to expect from Dennis Lehane - in the heart of the action, a crime (?) committed. Who is Rachel Childs and why has she killed her husband? And then….

And then, it is not that novel. What follows is a ‘literary’ novel, the story of a woman whose life is dominated by the missing. Denied her father’s identity by her controlling and manipulative mother, Rachel tries to find him. Becoming an reporter, she is haunted, firstly by those taken by the hurricane in Haiti, then by those taken by the rape gangs who follow in its wake. Rachel is unhappy, unfulfilled and close to breakdown but, despite her issues, perhaps because of them, she is hard to root for. Lehane writes brilliantly and some of his prose is stunningly good but Rachel is not an entirely sympathetic character. She is needy, self-absorbed and a bit whiny… But her story is captivating. Even as I struggled with the direction of the book, trying to work out exactly what I was reading, where Lehane was going, I was enjoying it immensely. The story moves slowly, there is little in the way of real plot, but I enjoyed the writing, the commentary on modern American values, the media.

“God. I want the capital-G God the televangelists claim moves tornadoes out of their paths. The one who cures cancer and arthritis in the faithful, the God professional athletes thank for taking an interest in the outcome of the Super Bowl or the World Cup or a home run hit in the eighty-seventh game of the hundred sixty-two played by the Red Sox this year.”

And then, it is not that novel.

About halfway through ‘Since We Fell’ goes in a different direction. You don’t see it coming. It is so jarring that it is almost as if you have started another novel, one that is pretty much all about plot, and I suppose how the reader reacts to this, accepts this, is down to how much you like, and trust, Dennis Lehane. Having read Lehane since the Kenzie and Gennaro novels, I was prepared to go with him. And I am glad I did.

I won’t go into the details of the second half of ‘Since We Fell’. It is only fair for others to enjoy (or be infuriated by) the abrupt transition. In terms of Lehane’s work I suspect this is a bit of an experiment, a flawed but enjoyable and worthwhile experiment.

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Saturday 3 June 2017

Review: The Liar

The Liar The Liar by Steve Cavanagh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Steve Cavanagh's third Eddie Flynn novel is his best yet. Obviously inspired by Grisham and Connelly, with 'The Liar' Cavanagh comes very close to matching him. The story follows the same basic pattern of the previous two novels - an unusual case, lots of action, a courtroom battle in which more is at stake than meets the eye, short, fast moving chapters which, like Saturday morning Flash Gordon serials, end on cliffhangers which make you want to keep reading. Cavanagh is becoming a master of these WTF moments and there are many fewer instances in 'The Liar' where I felt the narrator, Eddie Flynn, was withholding information from me. In other words, the surprises and twists arise naturally from the plot. And, of course, Eddie Flynn, street-smart, ex-conman turned defence lawyer, is an engaging character.

The time around Eddie is acting for the father of a kidnapped daughter, a security specialist who believes he knows better than the FBI how to get his daughter back and is probably going to break the law to do so. Eddie gets more involved in the action than a lawyer would be expected to, gets to punch people, gets to cross-examine people, all the while trying to work out, as the reader is, exactly what is going on. And it is great fun. The pace is frenetic. It's not perfect but it is very very entertaining and I look forward to what Steve Cavanagh and Eddie Flynn do next.

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Sunday 28 May 2017

Review: Here and Gone

Here and GoneHere and Gone by Haylen Beck
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Haylen Beck's debut reads like the work of a much more experienced writer. Which of course it is, actually being the 8th novel by Northern Ireland writer, Stuart Neville. But neither the author nor the publisher have made any attempt to keep this a secret, and it makes perfect sense being a real departure from Neville's excellent Ulster-set police procedurals.

'Here and Gone' will appeal to readers of Harlen Coben and Linwood Barclay. Like those authors, the story concerns ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. In "Here and Gone', a mother fleeing an abusive husband with her son and daughter is pulled over by police as she drives from New York to the west coast. Arrested for possession of drugs, she is separated from her children and, when she asks about them, the arresting officer answers, "What children?"

It is a great premise for a psychological thriller and the author handles the tension well as the woman's anxiety grows, with the local police, the FBI, the residents of the small town in which she is held and, of course, the media firmly convinced of her guilt in the disappearance of her children.

An almost unbearably suspenseful novel which deserves huge success. Thanks to NetGalley and Harvill Secker/Vintage for the advance review copy. 'Here and Gone' is published July 13. Highly recommended.

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Review: The Plea

The Plea The Plea by Steve Cavanagh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Steve Cavanagh's second Eddie Flynn novel builds and improves on a decent debut. A twisty, tightly plotted legal thriller, 'The Plea' can stand with 'The Firm' or 'The Lincoln Lawyer'. While there are still a few unlikely developments and a couple of cases where Eddie, the first person narrator, withholds crucial information, Cavanagh maintains the fast, exciting pace throughout. The author has mastered the technique of using short chapters which finish on mini-cliffhangers that make you want to turn the page and keep going.

Eddie Flynn, ex-con artist turned defence lawyer, has to use all his street skills in the courtroom against not only the weight of evidence but also pressure from the FBI who believe Eddie's client holds vital information key to exposing a major money laundering racket and want a plea bargain to secure it. The problem is that Eddie believes his client is innocent.

I really enjoyed this and look forward to seeing where Steve Cavanagh and Eddie Flynn go next. Thankfully, the third Flynn novel, 'The Liar', is on my kindle.

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Sunday 21 May 2017

Review: The Cleaner

The Cleaner The Cleaner by Mark Dawson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Come on,” Milton said. “Look at me—do I look like James Bond?”

I enjoyed ‘The Cleaner’, Mark Dawson’s first John Milton novel, having come to it with little expectation - the author sent me the book as part of his subscriber’s Starter Library but it sat on my Kindle until an interview with Dawson on Steve Cavanagh’s & Luca Veste’s very fine ‘Two Crime Writers and a Microphone’ podcast sparked my interest again.

John Milton, the British government’s longest serving assassin, decides to quit following a messy situation in France; but you cannot quit… Pursued by Control, and a younger, more ruthless would-be successor, Milton becomes involved with a woman from London’s Hackney area whose 15-year old son has been drawn into a criminal gang led by a charismatic rapper come drugs dealer, a sort of cross between Dizzy Rascal and Scarface. The story is fast moving, violent and very entertaining. Essentially the plot is what would happen if Bond became the Equaliser against the background of the London riots from a few years back. There is a little clunky dialogue and exposition but enough to keep me interested in the series.

And of course Milton looks like James Bond; Dawson takes his physical description straight from Fleming.

“His eyes were on the grey side of blue, his mouth had a cruel twist to it, there was a long horizontal scar from his cheek to the start of his nose, and his hair was long and a little unkempt, a frond falling over his forehead in a wandering comma.”

And Milton carries “very little in the way of possessions, but what he did own was classic and timeless: a wide, flat gun-metal cigarette case; a black oxidized Ronson lighter; a Rolex Oyster Perpetual watch.”

If you like Ian Fleming’s Bond, the John Milton series comes highly recommended. As does Cavanagh’s and Veste’s podcast.


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Friday 12 May 2017

Review: Bad Blood

Bad Blood Bad Blood by Brian McGilloway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Brian McGilloway is invisible, and that is a rare talent for a writer. There are writers, many of whose work I love, who sacrifice plot for beautifully constructed passages that warrant re-reading for the pleasure of the words; there are others for whom plot is everything and who sell millions of copies despite clunky, painfully overwrought writing. McGilloway is a storyteller who, over the course of several novels, has consistently delivered entertaining, densely plotted crime stories which simultaneously comment on current affairs, particularly post-Troubles Northern Ireland life; all without such comment getting in the way of the story. He never preaches – there are enough preachers in Northern Ireland – but, while his stories flow in a way that almost makes you forget you are reading, McGilloway is also holding up a mirror to some of the events and people still holding the country back.

‘Bad Blood’ is set in the week leading up to the Brexit referendum. The discovery of the badly beaten body of a young gay man brings DS Lucy Black into contact with a community full of suspicion and intolerance – not just the sectarianism so long prevalent in Northern Ireland society but also prejudice against homosexuals and immigrants, prejudice stirred up by firebrand preachers and ex-paramilitary community ‘leaders’.

“In Northern Ireland, you can’t have your cake at all if you’re gay…”

McGilloway’s characters are fully realised. They may have stereotypical views but there are no stereotypes. The loyalist leaders, feuding among themselves, may garner little sympathy but McGilloway captures perfectly the very real concerns in the working-class estates that keeps such figures in positions of influence. “I see the end of our culture”, says the preacher. “We’re not allowed to march. We’re not allowed to fly our flag…. This peace dividend? They never told us it was for the middle classes only. They never said that the poor would stay poor.”

The threads running through ‘Bad Blood’ come straight from the headlines in a Northern Ireland where politicians are more concerned with arguing the right of a bakery to discriminate against gay people for ‘religious’ reasons than they are with forming an effective government; where paramilitary organisations drive out ‘foreign’ drug dealers only to protect their own monopolies; where dissenters are ‘six-packed’, shot in elbows, knees and ankles; where houses are daubed with anti-Roma slogans. Brian McGilloway handles these complex issues with a masterful touch, never making them the focus of the novel, rather informing a very good police procedural which can be read and enjoyed as just that. But, if the reader is prepared to dive deeper, the story is so much more rewarding.

‘Bad Blood’ will be published just three weeks before the day of the general election, an election informed by Brexit, an election which will likely lead to further division, perhaps particularly in the only part of the UK with a land border to the Europe we are currently divorcing…

Thanks to Corsair/Hachette and NetGalley for the advance review copy.

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Sunday 23 April 2017

Review: The Ghosts of Galway

The Ghosts of Galway The Ghosts of Galway by Ken Bruen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“It’s not that the Irish are cynical. It’s simply that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.” – Brendan Behan

Jack Taylor returns in “The Ghosts of Galway” with the “lack of respect” to which author Ken Bruen alludes in his Behan quote, but also with a healthy dose of cynicism. The all-weather Garda coat and the hurley return too along with “newish 501s, and the scuffed Doc Martins. You never knew when you might need to kick someone in the face.” And, as always, kicking is only the beginning of the violence meted out, and suffered, by Jack as the story proceeds and he deals with a strangely named Ukrainian; a Ron Hubbard wannabe and his enforcers; dead animals being dumped in Eyre Square; a girl with an imaginary brother; his former best friend, and now sworn enemy, Garda Ridge; and, most troubling, the return of “Emily and her diffuse weirdness” who made Taylor’s life such a “Green Hell” in his last outing. As Jack muses,

“…a thriller writer would throw out all these strands and then, presto, wrap them all up with a rugged hero, battered but unbowed, heading into an award-winning future.”

Of course, Jack Taylor, often battered, is not the traditional ‘rugged hero’ but then Ken Bruen is anything but a typical ‘thriller writer’…. There really is nothing like a Ken Bruen novel – the lyrical, poetic prose; the wry commentaries on current affairs (this time the 2016 deaths of musical heroes, the rise of Trump and Brexit; water charges…); the humour in the darkest of dark noir; the unique way he uses language, not only in the words he chooses to use but also
The
Way
Bruen
Puts
Words
On
The
Page
No other novels read like Ken Bruen’s. Brutal realism collides with stream of consciousness surrealism, commentary on the Kardasians with extreme bloody violence. The dialogue is rhythmic and musical… And profane.

For avenging angel Jack Taylor there is little redemption but, for the reader, there are few experiences to rival these books. I couldn’t put this down. Said,
“I can’t put this down.”

Unfortunately, it was over far too quickly.

“The Ghosts of Galway” is not published until November and I thank Mysterious Press and NetGalley for the early review copy and look forward to doing it all again on publication date.


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Review: Bloodstream

Bloodstream Bloodstream by Luca Veste
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was my first Luca Veste and I enjoyed it. Yes it is a little clichéd and a little ITV Crime Drama-like but Veste is very readable and his Murphy and Rossi team are likeable. The plot concerns the murder of a Liverpool-based celebrity couple and the subsequent investigation which reveals the existence of a serial killer targeting couples who have been keeping secrets from each other. It is a competent police procedural which has something to say about the way social media and the tabloid press exploit both celebrity and victims of crime. Veste could perhaps have explored this aspect of his story more but there was enough here to make me read more of the series and, on Whispersync, John Keeble's Liverpudlian narration really captured the Scouse wit.

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Tuesday 18 April 2017

Review: A Dark So Deadly

A Dark So Deadly A Dark So Deadly by Stuart MacBride
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Welcome to Mother’s Misfit Mob”

Stuart McBride’s new novel, “A Dark So Deadly”, is a standalone, separate from his Logan McCrae or Ash Henderson series although set in the same fictional town of Oldcastle as the latter. DC Callum MacGregor has ended up on a squad of police officers that no-one else wants, suspected of contaminating a crime scene but without enough evidence to have him sacked. His fellow ‘Misfits’ are similarly tainted and together they have been side-lined, unlikely to see a decent case again. When a mummified body is found in a landfill site the team are tasked with ringing round museums to find out from where it has been stolen. Then the discovery of another mummy and some strange post-mortem results suggests that the bodies are not in fact centuries old but the result of more recent experiments and that the Misfit Mob has a serial killer on their hands.

The novel is full of McBride’s usual dark humour and some characteristically Scottish descriptive terms.

“The old station house in Castleview had a weird sour coconutty smell, as if it’d got blootered on Malibu the night before and vomited all over itself. Maybe the Security Monitoring and Analysis Department liked to lube themselves up with suntan lotion of a Saturday morning?”

Initially like a dysfunctional family, we see the Misfit’s pull together as the strange case develops. Callum, who because of events in his childhood has little sense of self-worth, proves to be a capable investigator, even as his personal life gets messier. The characters, fr all their issues, become real and likeable.

In the background of the investigation is a music festival and the narrative is accompanied in places by a cheesy radio DJ advertising the event. McBride has great fun capturing the inanity of such local radio personalities as he does with the band names of those appearing at the concert – new album from ‘Overture for a Riot’ anyone?

This is a long book for a police procedural but the story rattles along. There are a few missteps – I could have done with less bad poetry from what was otherwise a really interesting character; there are a few convenient coincidences – but the book is thrilling, scary in places and very, very entertaining. I hope we see more of the Misfits and that this ‘standalone’ is the start of a new series.

I thank NetGalley and HarperCollins for the advance copy.


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Sunday 9 April 2017

Review: A Game of Ghosts

A Game of Ghosts A Game of Ghosts by John Connolly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

John Connolly is currently one of the best writers, and the Charlie Parker novels one of the best series, in any genre. In what genre these books sit is debatable; they are thrillers, detective stories, mysteries, horror stories. What is not debatable is that Connolly writes poetic, lyrical, haunting prose and dialogue which compares favourably with Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald or Elmore Leonard.

If you know these books, you know just how rewarding, if disturbing, an experience each addition to the series is. If you don't, then put down what you're reading and pick up 'Every Dead Thing', the first Parker novel.

'A Game of Ghosts' is the 15th in the Parker series. It is not a jumping on point. The books really need to be read in order and to do so is one of the most intense and satisfying journeys in modern fiction.

I envy you....

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Sunday 2 April 2017

Review: Bloodstorm

Bloodstorm Bloodstorm by Sam Millar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this. I didn't hate it; I just didn't love it. "Bloodstorm" is a Private Detective novel set in Belfast; I am from Northern Ireland and I love PI books. When we met it should have been murder....

The idea is a good one - take a traditional, hard-boiled, wise-cracking gumshoe and put him on the mean streets of post-troubles Belfast. Unfortunately, this could be set anywhere, Belfast never becomes a character, there is no sense of uniqueness of setting and, worst of all, people just don't speak like that, not least the people of Belfast. The dialogue is stilted and unnatural for the most part; there is no rhythm to it and in key scenes is reads like poor actors reading a laboured, expositional script.

As I said, I didn't hate it. There is a decent plot although it would benefit from a good editor; sections could have been streamlined or left out altogether, wild dogs become confused with wild pigs (both appear on Belfast's Cavehill at times in the novel), and, while I love Billie Holiday, her voice was anything but 'flawless'. I may pick up other work by Millar. His bio certainly suggests that he should have an authentic voice but it just doesn't come through in "Bloodstorm"...

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Friday 24 March 2017

Review: Behind Her Eyes

Behind Her Eyes Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

#WTFthatending

“A tenner says you’ll never guess this ending”

When the promotion for a book emphasises the ending so strongly, more strongly in this case than any I have come across before, the ending becomes the focus, the thing by which the story's success is measured. I would not have won the tenner and the conclusion certainly was #WTF but unfortunately not in a good way.

'Behind Her Eyes' is a well constructed psychological thriller, a story of martial infidelity narrated by two women who may not be what they tell us they are. The narrative moves quickly, the characters are compelling and the dialogue is good. But the twist.... The ending is so out of context, although there are clues that here is something strange going on below the surface, that, when I realised where this was going, I was completely thrown out of the story.

So, despite its merits, when the publicity concentrates on an ending that, for me, is unsuccessful, I have to judge the book accordingly.

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Friday 17 March 2017

Review: Before the Fall

Before the Fall Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I stopped reading the X-men about the same time as Charles Xavier's son, Legion turned up. I didn't like the character and although I've watched the movies, I didn't think much of Apocalypse. So I was surprised when, having watched the first episode almost by accident, I was blown away by the Legion TV series. Even more so when I discovered the series was written and created by Noah Hawley and that he is also behind the Fargo series, another I had avoided simply because I enjoyed the movie so much. And then, courtesy of Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley, I received a review copy of the same Noah Hawley's Before the Fall. Synchronicity...?

Before the Fall is the story of Scott Burroughs, a down on his lunch artist, who accepts an invitation to travel by private jet from Martha's Vineyard to New York. When the jet crashes into the sea all but Scott and the jet-owners' four year old son are killed. Scott becomes part of, perhaps subject of, the investigation and is pursued by news agencies eager for the story. That is essentially the plot. A large part of the narrative is the backstories of the passengers - the 24-hour news mogul and his wife, the dodgy businessman, the bodyguard, the flightcrew - and how they came to be on board the doomed plane.

But plot is not what Before the Fall is about. The novel is an exquisitely written examination of life in the 21st century; what it means to be living in a society where news has to have an 'angle', where so many people base their world view on 'what's in it for me' that it becomes impossible to comprehend that someone may just act rather than act selfishly. It is in the passengers individual stories, the little connections, the seemingly unrelated choices, that lead to larger consequences, where the real weight of the book, the message, is contained -

"Life is a series of decisions and reactions. It is the things you do and the things that are done to you."

Noah Hawley has a real gift for language, an ear for dialogue. Whole passages deserve re-reading, the reader's appreciation of the lyrical, mesmerising quality of the writing only grows. I will be going back to watch Fargo and The Good Father is on my to-read list and i might have missed it all had I not read the X-men....

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Sunday 12 March 2017

Review: The Blade Itself

The Blade Itself The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have always struggled a bit with Fantasy novels. As a pre-teen I discovered Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian by way of Marvel's Roy Thomas and John Buscema and proceeded to read everything I could find. I to see the Arnie movie version two nights in a row. But I couldn't get to grips with Tolkien and, although I later read and enjoyed the Lord of the Rings, it is still somewhat po-faced and humourless, not to mention full of irritating diversions with the likes of Tom Bombadil. Game of Thrones was a revelation and, after watching the first episode of the TV series, I read the first volume of George RR Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' in a week and quickly caught up with the those who had been reading the books for ten years.

GRRM also inspired Joe Abercrombie to begin his First Law saga, and it is a saga, a return to the days when Fantasy was still called Sword & Sorcery. It has barbarian heroes (at least I think they are heroes), powerful wizards, women who can hold their own with the men, politics, warmongering and generally a lot of strange goings on. But just as importantly, 'The Blade Itself' has a sense of humour and a huge amount of fun. It was the humour in Howard's work that kept me reading Conan's adventures and it is the playfulness in Abercrombie's writing that will keep me coming back. His cast may be archetypes but they are written as real people, three dimensional characters with understandable, if sometimes contradictory, motivations, not a few faults and insecurities. We have Logen Ninefingers, the Bloody Nine, the Conan character, a legendary but tired killer who questions his black legacy and whose berserker rages are ferocious; Jezal dan Luthar, a nobleman whose snobbery forms his world view and who may be really out of his depth; and Bayaz, First of the Magi, a possibly centuries old wizard, whose sardonic wit is a source of much of the early humour in the book.

Abercrombie has a real talent for naturalistic dialogue, profanity and bloodshed. 'The Blade Itself' is very entertaining; I loved it and the second book in the series has just moved up a few places in my 'to-read' list....

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Sunday 19 February 2017

The Missing (Darby McCormick #1)The Missing by Chris Mooney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have never been a huge fan of the serial killer sub-genre; I love Thomas Harris's 'Silence of the Lambs' and consider the predecessor, 'Red Dragon', a masterpiece. And the movies made from these novels are classics (I am including Michael Mann's 'Manhunter' here, not the Anthony Hopkins 'Red Dragon') as is Fincher's 'Seven'. However, aside from these, and very few others, and perhaps because of the success of 'Seven', it seems that every serial killer novel has to have a fiendish villain who meticulously lays out his victims in biblical tableaux, or in the styles of the great artists, or in tribute to classic 'Friends' episodes - actually that's not a bad idea, "The One with the Missing Limbs".

Chris Mooney is an author I had never come across and, though drawn by endorsements from Michael Connelly, George P. Pelecanos and, especially, John Connolly, I approached the first Darby McCormick novel with some trepidation. I am glad I did.

The book is well-written and Mooney has a talent for description and an ear for dialogue. The plot follows Darby, whose teenage encounter with a killer and survivor's guilt, has led her to a career as a CSI. The book speeds along with some genuinely tense and frightening sequences. Darby is an interesting protagonist and the bulk of the story is hers with visits into the head of the killer used sparingly and in short scenes to keep the suspense level just right. There a couple of twists which, in less capable hands, could have fallen into the clichés of the genre but which Mooney makes work. I enjoyed 'The Missing' a lot and look forward to the rest of the series, although I will still be wary that, should Darby McCormick stumble from one serial killer to another, Mooney may struggle to maintain the suspension of disbelief.

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Sunday 5 February 2017

Blood Tide by Claire McGowan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Aside from one short story, this is the first time I have read Claire McGowan (courtesy of Headline and NetGalley) and, despite it being the fifth book in the Paula Maguire series, I had no difficulty in picking up the story. Maguire, a Forensic Psychologist and missing persons expert, is sent to a remote island off the west coast of Ireland to aid in the investigation into the mysterious disappearance of an English husband and wife. Bone Island resonates with Paula as this was the last place she holidayed with her parents before her mother's equally mysterious disappearance over 20 years before. Wife of a Roman Catholic RUC officer in Northern Ireland, Margaret Maguire was assumed to be among 'the disappeared', victims of IRA killings, presumed 'touts', buried in secret, but Paula has recently discovered a note left by her mother which suggests that she may have left voluntarily.

The two threads run in parallel as Paula discovers that the couple's disappearance is only the latest in a series of strange occurrences on the island while we also discover in flashback that an ex-colleague of her father's may have more knowledge of Margaret's fate than he has ever revealed. Some of the missing couple's life on the island, including some suspicions about the local seaweed processing plant, are revealed through the words of the wife, Fiona, the local GP of whom many of the islanders appear wary.

Claire McGowan is excellent at creating suspense and generating a feeling of unease. What appears initially to be a police procedural takes a left turn into almost gothic horror but never becomes unbelievable. She is also good at dialogue, realistically capturing the differences between the Northern and Southern Irish voices. My only criticism is that one or twice things are revealed to the main character and artificially withheld slightly longer from the reader to try and increase the tension - the story does not need this. Paula's messy personal life and her mother's arc are obviously series storylines and I look forward to both going back to the start of the series and finding out what happens next....

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Unfaithful Music & Disappearing InkUnfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Despite having listened to Elvis Costello’s music since 1977, following his career from his early angry, spiky New Wave recordings with The Attractions, through the country songs of ‘Almost Blue’ and later collaborations with the Brodsky Quartet and Paul McCartney, knowing he is married to Diana Krall, when I think of Costello it is still the skinny, snarling young man spitting cynical lyrics from behind a Fender Jazzmaster that I picture. Only when you list the artists that Costello has written, recorded and performed with - Attractions, Imposters, Nick Lowe, Specials, Daryl Hall, Diana Krall, Ray Brown, Chet Baker, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin, Ann Sofie Mutter, Brodsky Quartet, Bob Dylan, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Burt Bacharach ,Bill Frizzell, Allen Toussaint, George Jones, James Burton, Jerry Scheff, T-Bone Burnett, Paul McCartney, Jerry Lee Lewis, Robert Wyatt, London Symphony Orchestra, The Roots - do you appreciate the breadth of his music and the impact he has had on the musical landscape of the last 40 years.

In ‘Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink’, written without ghostwriters and narrated in the audiobook version by the author himself, Elvis Costello tells of this perhaps unlikely journey and his experiences along the way. It is not a traditional chronological autobiography - “I was born in Paddington in 1954….” - rather a series of themed chapters dealing with particular aspects of his love of music. Costello is candid about his personal life but these stories are told in context and always framed by the music. The music is the most important character in this book. We learn about his grandfather, a White Star Line trumpet player, and his father, the big-band singer, Ross McManus, through Costello’s reflections on the life of a musician on the road. His chapters on, for instance, Allen Toussaint and Burt Bacharach concentrate on these collaborations across several years.

Costello, as anyone who has listened to his lyrics will know, is a natural storyteller and his stories here are frank and honest, as when he talks of his drinking and his marriage failures, but also comical like the unlikely sounding story of how he and Solomon Burke stood in a corridor outside Aretha Franklin’s dressing room hoping to speak with her only to have the Queen of Soul fling the door open and snap their picture with a disposable camera, or he and Bob Dylan accidentally locking themselves out of a concert hall and having to make their way back through queuing fans.

This is a big book but it rattles along. It is almost liking sitting with Costello as he relates a series of “Did I ever tell you about the time…” stories, illustrating points by quoting song lyrics, both illuminating their meaning and sending you back to the recordings. I began this book as an Elvis Costello fan, albeit intermittently over the last 10 or 15 years. I finished it with an increased admiration for, and appreciation of, one of the most singular talents of the last 40.
____

Link to Costello speaking about the book on November 3, 2015 as part of the 26th annual Chicago Humanities Festival - https://youtu.be/_wVjxAN8j-8

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Saturday 28 January 2017

Dry Bones in the ValleyDry Bones in the Valley by Tom Bouman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have had this novel on my to read list since shortly after it was published. I went to a "Northern Irish Noir" panel at the local library featuring crime-writers Brian McGilloway, Stuart Neville and Steve Cavanagh and, from memory, at least two of them were reading it. I'm glad I finally got round to it.

An atmospheric slice of rural noir, 'Dry Bones in the Valley' is set in a Pennsylvania community full of simmering tensions and interfamily suspicions. Officer Henry Farrell, a melancholy widower, following the discovery of an unidentified corpse on the land of a reclusive neighbour, is drawn into an investigation hampered by these long held resentments and feuds, many brought into sharp focus due to the potential windfalls offered by a fracking company to the otherwise extremely poor landowners.

The key to the book is the atmosphere and sense of place, the cold sparse backwoods and Tom Bouman, in his first novel, proves an immediate master of suspense with several tense nighttime confrontations. His observations on the plight of the American poor - "Poor people aren’t thin anymore, like when I was a kid; now they’re fat on the cheap food feeding the ghost of the American dream." - are well-constructed and thought-provoking, some hoping that the natural gas that lies in the shale below their dwellings will be their salvation, others dealing drugs.

I liked Henry Farrell - he's no barrel of laughs but he is a compelling and authentic voice. I was drawn in by the descriptions of dark woodland and bogs, possibly due to the similarity with rural Ireland, and I look forward to revisiting when Bouman's second Farrell book is published later this year. I suspect, as I suspect does Farrell, that the fracking bonanza may not be the positive change some of his neighbours are anticipating.

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Saturday 14 January 2017

Police at the Station and They Don’t Look FriendlyPolice at the Station and They Don’t Look Friendly by Adrian McKinty
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Several years ago I chanced upon "Dead I Well May Be" by Adrian McKinty, a novel about a Belfast ex-pat, Michael Forsythe, becoming embroiled in New York gangland, a slice of violent noir, with wonderful dialogue, with the action punctuated with poetic, almost mystical passages. The book and the author quickly became favourites. I read the complete "Dead" trilogy and the rest of McKinty's work and, five years ago, began to follow his new trilogy set in 1980s Belfast. "The Cold, Cold Ground" introduced Sean Duffy, a Roman Catholic in a predominantly Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary. The books are all five-star, the series uniformly excellent, McKinty one of the best crime-writers currently writing. But nothing has usurped "Dead I Well May Be" - until now...

"Police at the Station...", the sixth in the Duffy trilogy (take that "Hitchhikers..."), may be the best novel Adrian McKinty has written to date and it deserves to be widely read. Duffy, a little older, perhaps slightly wiser, has undergone some life-altering changes since the end of the last novel and is struggling to get used to being a father and nearly-husband. Meanwhile somebody is murdering drug dealers with a crossbow.....

As with McKinty's previous work, the story is filled with snappy, authentic dialogue and the investigation brings Duffy, and his loyal team, McCrabban and Lawson, into contact with real-life 'Troubles" in Belfast, in this case the terrible aftermath of the March 1988 SAS shooting of an IRA team in Gibraltar which led to rioting in Northern Ireland, Michael Stone's attack on the IRA funerals and the televised lynching of two British Army corporals. But, again as usual, there is also a lot of humour in the book as well as Duffy's love of literature and music - he is listening to a lot of 20th Century classical this time around and at one point memorably, and correctly, characterises the 1980s pop-music as “anodyne, conformist, radio-friendly bollocks, lacking in soul, grace, intelligence or joy.”

Adrian McKinty is a literate and intelligent writer of clever and exciting crime thrillers and, despite being completely wrong about Denis Villeneuve's "Arrival" and putting the irritating "I'd of.." in Duffy's mouth twice in this novel, should be on any self-respecting crime fan's to-read list well ahead of any amount of Scandi-bollocks and James Patterson's weekly output.

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The Big Sleep (Philip Marlowe, #1)The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"It was about ten-thirty in the morning when the little yellow-sashed Mexican orchestra got tired of playing a low-voiced prettied-up rhumba that nobody was dancing to."

This is probably my favourite book, Raymond Chandler certainly my favourite author. Recently, belatedly discovering James Crumley sent me back here. It has been a few years since I read the Marlowe novels, and I intend to read them all again. Chandler took what other "hard-boiled' pulp storytellers, particularly Dashiell Hamnett, were doing and made it an art-form, the template followed by Ross & John MacDonald, James Crumley, Robert B. Parker, Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly and John Connolly, Ace Atkins, and so many other writers I have come to love. Marlowe affected me so much, my first son is named Philip - "Down These Mean Streets..."

This time I read my lovely, Bill Amberg leather-bound, Penguin Classic which made the book a joy to hold as well as to read. It was fun reacquainting myself with the Sternwoods, Geiger and Brody, Bernie Ohls and Eddie Mars and wondering who killed the chauffeur... But, it's the language that matters. Open the book to any chapter, any page, and passages like that with which this review begins appear. It's like re-listening to favourite music and finding an organ line in the mix that hadn't been immediately apparent. I love the tune and, what lyrics.....

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Monday 2 January 2017

Cosi Fan Tutti (Aurelio Zen, #5)Cosi Fan Tutti by Michael Dibdin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not the most successful of Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen novels but an interesting experiment. Loosely based around the plot of Mozart's similarly named opera, the plot is similarly farcical. Zen, never the most dedicated of policemen, is here a lazy, work-shy bumbler who rarely seems to know what is going on and at times the plot became so convoluted that I shared his bemusement. But there is enough here to make the book worthwhile and some laugh out loud moments such as the taxi driver who interprets American-English to Italian despite her only English being Cockney dialect.

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#BlogTour - Still See You Everywhere by Lisa Gardner

A remote tropical island. Countless dangerous secrets. No way to call help. ‘A  master of the thriller  genre’ David Baldacci ‘Full-on  acti...