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Saturday 11th February | ||||||||||
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ReviewsAnno Dracula The Bloody Red Baron Kim Newman Among the most intriguing (and welcome) publishing phenomena of recent years has been the revival of interest (via Titan's reissue programme) in Kim Newman's splendid reinvention of Bram Stoker's Dracula mythos. Newman's books, previously published, have risen from the dead (highly appropriate, given their central protagonist) with all the author's customary prodigal invention and audacious genre mixing intact, but with much new material added . . . This is a strange mix Drive DVD starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan and Albert Brooks Once upon a time, back in the good old, bad old days, I described James Sallis as 'an unsung hero of crime' in my column in the Independent on Sunday. Well, he's certainly not unsung these days, as his novel Drive is now a MAJOR MOTION PICTURE as they were described in my youth
We can all vividly remember the experience of reading crucial comics in our youth. To this day, I recall being so impatient to consume the bulky British shilling edition of Simon & Kirby's Race for the Moon #2 (which was the US comic in black and white, bulked out to 68 pages with other Harvey comics reprints such as Bob Powell's quirky Man in Black) . . . Just once in a while, a thriller comes along that is so good it takes your breath away John Foster and Noir Theatre (First Draft at the Charing Cross Theatre, 22 January 2012) "There is film noir, noir on TV, every kind of literary noir you care to name," John Foster once remarked. "But where is noir in the theatre?" It's a pertinent observation from a man with a long career in TV drama.... The Mattress House By Paulus Hochgatterer Paulus Hochgatterer has followed THE SWEETNESS OF LIFE, which won the European Literature Prize in 2009, with another novel set in the same Austrian Alpine town of Furth am See The Retribution By Val Mcdermid Serial killers in fiction seem almost cosy these days Edge Of Dark Water Joe Lansdale If you've read Joe Lansdale before you won't need to read this review; you'll read his latest anyway. If you haven't read him, read this, an astounding tale of a small group (it varies from three to five) escaping from serious trouble in down-home backwoods Texas by sailing a raft down river through lands stalked by danger and controlled by no one. Sounds a bit like Huckleberry Finn? This is a hundred times better... Turn to your left at a Shostakovich concert in the Royal Festival Hall, and you are quite likely to see the crime writer John Harvey beaming at the pounding orchestral crescendi. If you're at the Barbican listening to Wynton Marsalis lift the roof with a Duke Ellington piece, Harvey may now be sitting on your right, equally transported. But if Harvey is protean in his musical tastes, he is equally so as a writer. The Istanbul Puzzle By Laurence O'Bryan Compelling debut thriller combines plenty of stirring action with fascinating historical detail I think I've read most of Leonard's books, and even the ones I didn't like much, I enjoyed. But when he hits the target, it's always a real bullseye, and this is one of them Birthdays For The Dead By Stuart Macbride In this stand-alone departure from MacBride's popular Logan McRae series, Detective Constable Ash Henderson has a seriously faulty moral compass After his Edgar-winning standalone novel, The Lock Artist, (see my review here) Steve Hamilton returns to the familiar ground of Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Alex McKnight, his reluctant detective. For Hamilton it's not quite the retreat it is for McKnight; most of the series has involved Alex escaping, healing or both in the loneliness of the winter landscape, and Misery Bay is no exception... A June Of Ordinary Murders By Conor Brady It's not often you get a debut crime novel from a former editor of the Irish Times who is also a former Garda Ombudsman I Will Have Vengeance By Maurizio De Giovanni Trans Anne Milano Appel The first in a series featuring an enigmatic Naples detective Commissario Ricciardi and set during the Fascist 1930s The Golden Scales By Parker Bilal Parker Bilal whisks the reader straight to the dark heart of Cairo Hurley is still a master of Police Procedural and Happy Days is a superb example
My favourite of all locked-room novels has at last been reissued. The Mystery of the Yellow Room was written in 1908 by Gaston Leroux, better known for The Phantom of the Opera, and has never been bettered. The first in a series of novels to feature the intrepid if naive young reporter and sleuth, Rouletabille, it pits him against the dark soul of the detective Frederick Larsan and the murky secrets of the Stangerson family... Finders Keepers By Belinda Bauer With all the usual ingredients and formula of a crime thriller novel, I doubt dedicated genre readers will be disappointed by the latest novel from Belinda Bauer The Berlin Crossing By Kevin Brophy A story about reconciliation between the former east and west Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George, Stolen Souls by Stuart Neville, Finders Keepers by Belinda Bauer and Crimes in Southern Indiana by Frank Bill The Whisperer By Donato Carrisi The Whisperer grabs you by the throat from the opening chapters It was around chapter 31 that I realised I was reading the novel in entirely the wrong light, and doing Barlow a disservice in doing so Dublin Dead By Gerard O'Donovan The collapse of the Celtic Tiger has added extra resonance to Gerard O'Donovan's fiction Next 25 |
