Review: AC DC's Highway To Hell

AC DC's Highway To Hell by Joe Bonomo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One of the more straightforward 33 1/3 books, Joe Bonomo’s Highway to Hell is an examination of AC/DC’s breakthrough album and, while I profess to prefer this type of book to the more fanciful in the series, the real problem is that, while Highway to Hell is an excellent album, there is really not a lot here that requires detailed examination.

The book is split into three ‘chords’ - the first section puts the album in context and then essentially describes the songs in order; the second is a fairly pointless discussion of the album cover and live photos; the third a history of the band following Bon Scott’s death and the author and some of his friends looking back on how much they liked, and continue to like, the album. It’s all fairly inconsequential and very much US-centric but, if it makes you dig out the album again, it’s not a bad read.

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Review: Led Zeppelin's Led Zeppelin IV

Led Zeppelin's Led Zeppelin IV by Erik Davis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like the 33 1/3 books and I like Led Zeppelin, although I have never subscribed to the hyperbolic nonsense and mythologising that constitutes the vast majority of the material written about the band over the years. I mean, they were an very good band but they were no Deep Purple…

In the first few paragraphs of his book, Erik Davis describes buying “a copy of that literally nameless slab of luminous rune-rock we must stoop to dub Led Zeppelin IV, or Four Symbols, or Zoso” and I almost stopped reading but, a few lines later, “sure it was cock rock, but it was also a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, stuffed into a cock.” I thought, maybe this is tongue in cheek.

In truth, there is a lot of nonsense in Davis’s book. He decries myth making and then proceeds to tell the story of Zeppelin’s fourth album with the mythical journey of ‘Percy’ which he seems to feel winds through the two sides of the album. He does have a sense of humour but also a tendency to use the purple prose with which the music press used to be filled. But, ultimately, it is a short book and there is enough here to hold the interest.

And Davis does find some interesting ways into the music, despite his concentrating on Page’s preoccupation with magic(k) and Percy’s ‘bona fide quest’ (which, it has to be said, despite having concocted it entirely unaided, he does lighten by comparing it to ‘The Odyssey or The Hobbit or Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.’ He makes interesting observations about the differences between vinyl and MP3 and how consumption of the former made for a more immersive, and yes, perhaps, a more magical experience; the final chapters which take the songs in pairs are very readable; Davis also spends time on Led Zeppelin’s, primarily Jimmy Page’s, wholesale thievery, whether from blues greats or Bert Jansch, which many other authors are too willing to excuse.

Perhaps I just prefer those 33 1/3 books which delve into the making of the albums. I’m glad I finished this but it is not one of my favourites.

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Review: The Winter of Frankie Machine

The Winter of Frankie Machine by Don Winslow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"It's a lot of work being me"

Frank Machianno is a worker, a businessman. He owns a bait shop on San Diego pier, supplies fish to the best local restaurants and has a property rental portfolio. Frank also enjoys the finer things in life. He has season tickets for the opera; he surfs, never missing 'Gentlemen's Hour'; he enjoys cooking in the kitchen he has designed to be just right. He loves his 'cucina'.

'"This is a quality-of-life issue"' and 'quality of life is doing the little things - doing then well, doing them right.'

And Frank is a stand-up guy, a 'sheriff' on the pier, who settles a dispute between a Vietnamese fisherman and a crossbow 'hunter' when the latter 'sees something in Frank's eyes that just makes him shut his mouth.'

Because Frank Macchianno was, in an earlier time, Frankie Machine, top hitman for the San Diego mob. And it appears that someone wants Frankie dead...

I've come late to Don Winslow. I read 'The Power of the Dog' and 'The Cartel', both big sprawling visceral, and brilliant, commentaries on the War on Drugs, and his latest, 'The Force', a stunning 'dirty cop' novel whose central character, and anti-Serpico, vehemently believes that he is the good guy. 'The Winter of Frankie Machine' makes it clear to me that Mr Winslow is the natural successor to Elmore Leonard.

In the first few chapters, we get a clear picture of who Frank Machianno is, and what his life is like. And then all hell breaks loose...

With sharp dialogue, succinct, even laconic, descriptions, flashbacks that serve the plot, Winslow tells a 'hunter becomes the hunted becomes the hunter' story which could easily be formulaic in lesser hands. The novel is reminiscent of the movies of William Friedkin, or perhaps Walter Hill -I'm thinking of the likes of 'The French Connection', 'To Live and Die in LA' or 'The Driver'.

I loved 'The Winter of Frankie Machine' and, as when I discovered the novels of Elmore Leonard maybe 30 years ago, there are many novels to catch up on. And I'm going to read them all....


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Review: The Death of Mrs. Westaway

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Out of money, out of luck and living in fear of the loanshark to whom she is debt, Harriet 'Hal' Westaway, a Brighton pier tarot card reader, receives a lifeline in the form of a letter from a Penzance solicitor informing her that she is a beneficiary of her grandmother's will. Almost immediately, Hal realises that this is a mistake as the dead woman is obviously not her grandmother, but she desperately decides to pretend otherwise in the hope of gaining the few thousand pounds to get her out of the hole she is in. And so Hal travels to the funeral and on to the Manderley-like Trepassen House and secrets of a 'family' she has never met....

I didn't know what to expect from this novel or from Ruth Ware. I had heard good things about her books, 'The Woman in Cabin 10' especially, but had not got round to reading them. 'The Death of Mrs. Westaway' is a gothic mystery which builds suspense and maintains a sense of foreboding throughout. Ruth Ware writes extremely well - one character is described as having "the air fo a man who had eaten a good meal, but would always want more, nibbling at nuts and cheese" - and keeps the tension so that the reader wants to keep reading to see what happens next. That I guessed a couple of the twists didn't matter at all and, while it does get a little frantic towards the climax, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and will be putting the author's previous books on my 'to-read list'.

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Review: The Whisperer

The Whisperer by Donato Carrisi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Strange one this. Despite being a fan of all things Italian, and despite The Whisperer apparently being hugely successful in Europe, I was unaware of both this book and the author until a friend's recommendation. It is advertised as a 'literary' thriller which sometimes means no plot, but it kept me intrigued to the end. There is a labyrinthine plot involving multiple abductions, and murders, and a team of suitably damaged experts attempting to solve the crimes which appear to be the work of a fiendishly clever serial killer. I felt it was not always plausible and the language is at times, not exactly stilted, but a little cold, a little 'off'. Whether this is the Carrisi's style or a result of the translation, I don't know but it adds a sense of strangeness to the novel which is accentuated by the lack of a sense of place; it is hard to determine where the action is taking place. Carrisi is Italian but the book does not feel Italian, nor do the characters have Italian names. If anything, it feels Scandinavian.

I set this aside to read on a trip to Rome, which is perhaps where my slight unease comes from - but it is not necessarily a bad thing. I will pick up another Carrisi, perhaps the one with Rome in the title - that should be Italian, right?

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