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Saturday 31st July | |||||||||||
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Reviews and Articles listed A-Z by author >> Book ReviewsI'm Not Scared & The Crossroads Niccolò Ammaniti Canongate has issued a new paperback edition of Niccolò Ammaniti's I'm Not Scared (originally published in an English translation by Jonathan Hunt in 2003), alongside his later novel The Crossroads. The two books can be read as companion pieces on the complex relationship between father and son, a theme that clearly fascinates Ammaniti – before making his name as a thriller writer, he collaborated with his father (a professor in psycopathology) on an essay on the problems of adolescence entitled 'In the name of the son'... Bad Intentions Karin Fossum, Trans Charlotte Barslund At a recent crime-fiction convention in Bristol, the authors who were after-dinner speakers were dispensing the usual darkly humorous pleasantries to a chuckling audience; how they made a living from murder; how their spouses came up with ever-more ingenious ways of dispatching victims.But then the guest of honour, Karin Fossum, took the stage, and the bonhomie evaporated in a cool blast of Norwegian air... Barry Forshaw in The Independent Entanglement Zygmunt Miloszewski Entanglement is an interesting and unusual crime thriller with the world of psychotherapy forming the backdrop to its central events. The city of Warsaw is vividly evoked, a city whose dramatic and sometimes harrowing past often impinges on its present. The jaded central character of Teodor Szacki is idiosyncratic and well drawn, living on a diet of coffee, cigarettes and hard-boiled eggs in tartare sauce, apparently a cult item on the menu at the Warsaw Regional Court canteen. An intriguing tale that provides a distinctive and unsentimental portrait of post-communist Poland. And like the State Prosecutor's favourite delicacy, hard-boiled... Lawrence, O'donnell Et Al James Bond 007: Nightbird Modesty Blaise: Death In Slow Motion Titan Books continue their largesse in making available invaluable material from classic newspaper strips, collecting them for the first time between the covers of a book. Jim Lawrence's imaginatively written, highly sophisticated James Bond strips, strikingly realised in the highly individual visual style of Illustrator Yaroslav Horak make up the bulk of the 007 collection, with the artwork supplement by the equally talented Neville Colvin, illustrator of the companion volume devoted to the classic Modesty Blaise strips by Peter O'Donnell (who died recently). The question of whether it was suicide or murder, and if the latter who committed the crime, is at the core of Kris Rusch's Hitler's Angel, originally published in the US in 1998, and now reprinted here by Max Crime, part of that list's adventurous mix of new work and reprints of lesser-known titles. This may be the best so far, a serious novel structured around the reminiscence of a long-since retired Munich detective, Fritz Stecher, famed for solving one notorious murder, but trapped in the politics surrounding Geli's death... No One Loves A Policeman Guillermo Orsi, Trans. Nick Caistor If you're feeling like a change from British skies to a sultry Latin climate, then perhaps Guillermo Orsi's novel is your passport. However, the Argentina you will be taken to - while memorably evoked - is not a comfortable place. It is 2001, and the country is in the grip of violent conflict between a rioting populace and brutal police... Barry Forshaw in The Independent If you've not yet encountered the edgy crime fiction of NJ Cooper, it's time to adjust that omission. Lifeblood – her new outing for forensic psychologist Karen Taylor – is as sinewy and involving as its predecessor, No Escape... Bank Of The Black Sheep Robert Lewis The Robin Llywelyn trilogy drifts to its conclusion here, in this amiable if aimless tale in which our feckless hero wakes up chained to the bed in a hospice, saddled with two popular clichés from yesteryear – he is an amnesiac and has two months left to live. (He has cancer. No, really.) He has also, it appears, done something very wrong, certainly criminal and possibly homicidal... The Gentleman's Hour Don Winslow Boone Daniels, surfer and private eye, is back for a second novel, and The Gentleman's Hour is every bit as good as The Dawn Patrol (you can find my Crime Time review of that book under reviews). This time, Boone is drawn into two cases, neither of which he wants—one in which he's supposed to help the self-confessed killer of a local surfing legend and father figure, and the other where one of the Gentleman's Hour surfers (the guys who come after the working men on the Dawn Patrol have left) who suspects his wife is having an affair wants Boone to investigate; sleazy divorce work makes Boone feel uncomfortable... Fancy a vacation in South Africa? Here's a book to warn you where not to go and who not to meet. Set in all the wrong parts of Cape Town, among folk so hard you want to wall yourself in with cement, Wake Up Dead is the kind of novel other tough-guy crime stories hope to be when they grow up... The Girl With The Crystal Eyes Barbara Baraldi, Trans. Judith Forshaw This is an unrestrainedly sexual book, its open eroticism and appreciation of female lusts unimaginable in British or Nordic crime fiction– as is the highly stylish mode of dress favoured by most of the characters, though Tommasi lets the side down by wearing fake Ray-Bans... Jane Jakeman in The Independent IS THERE a protocol for killing a fellow intelligence agent? Apparently there is. To end the career of another professional in an honourable fashion it is necessary to take the unused gun from the holster of the man you have shot. Then you place it in his right hand and insert the index finger in the trigger guard. A shot must be discharged to give the impression that the dead man went down fighting...Barry Forshaw in The Express Giorgio Faletti is a man clearly not content with one career; over the years, he has been a lawyer, a TV comedian, a film actor and a singer/songwriter — what's more, he has enjoyed some considerable success at each of these disparate careers. But he is likely to become best-known in the UK for his blockbuster thriller, I Kill, which has already sold over 5 million copies worldwide before its UK appearance in translation... In many ways, Caught represents Harlan Coben at his best. Coben's thrillers have always involved ordinary people caught up in situations beyond their control, and it's Coben's definition of ordinary which often makes them so successful. Inevitably, the setting is affluent suburban New Jersey, but to Coben the bland pleasantness of suburban life often hides dark secrets. Even the most comfortable people turn out to have pasts that haunt them, or come back to haunt them. And the veneer of stability is easily shattered, the hierarchy of suburban concern easily toppled... The Darkest Room Johan Theorin Like his exceptional debut novel, Echoes From The Dead, Johan Theorin's story is deeply woven into the landscape of the Baltic island of Oland (in Swedish literally, Island Land), one which is considered unique by the island's residents (which included my grandmother), and by Swedes in general. It's not just a sense of setting, as it is in Mari Jungstedt's novels set on Gotland, the next island to the east. It's more a sense that the land itself is a force, if not a character, in the story... Criminal Summer Luigi Guicciardi There's something very un-Italian about Italian crime stories. They tend to be urbane, calm and unstressful, the investigating officers patient and discursive, and even the villains often give up without a fight. Once it's explained to them that they've been found out, they raise their hands in acknowledgement and come quietly. Perhaps it's all those years of confession and atonement... The Man Who Left Too Soon: The Biography Of Stieg Larsson Barry Forshaw But Larsson never saw (the book) become runaway bestsellers or knew that, when they reached other shores in translation, he was to become a worldwide publishing phenomenon. As Barry Forshaw explains in this pioneering biography, Larsson had died, aged 50, before the first book appeared even in his native Sweden... Roger Lewis in the Express The Killer's Art Mari Jungstedt The strength of Mari Jungstedt's novels set on the Baltic island of Gotland have been atmospheric. She conveys the claustrophobic comfort of living in isolation, on an island which is, in effect, a small town. This is highlighted by the contrast between her detective, Anders Knutas, and the television reporter Johan Berg. Knutas is the least depressive of Scandinavian detectives; he is a man happy in his job, his marriage, and his environment—not self-satisfied but not asking more of his Gotland life than it can provide, and seeing in it many of the old virtues of Swedish society... Needle In A Haystack Ernesto Mallo Mallo is a former member of the anit-Junta guerrilla movement and his experience informs his deft narrative and offers a tough visceral vision that has the ring of truth about it. Needle in a Haystack is a compelling, blood-stained document of tyranny and brutality told with skill and passion. Inspector Cataldo's Criminal Summer Luigi Guicciardi Luigi Guicciardi's protagonist Cataldo is an atypically tall, blond Sicilian, who works methodically and calmly in this, the first in a series of crime novels where the emphasis is very much on solving the puzzle rather than on vivid and unsettling descriptions of violence. Let's hope that new publisher Hersilia provides English readers with the further adventures of Inspector Cataldo... A Question Of Belief Donna Leon Donna Leon's elegant crime novels enjoy great success in various translations throughout the world. But, ironically, there is one country where they are not rendered into the native tongue: Italy, the stamping ground of her wily Commissario Brunetti. The reason? Italy is also the adopted country of Leon herself, an American expat who feels that the endemic corruption her copper encounters would seem provocative from an incomer... Barry Forshaw in The Independent Mark Timlin is celebrated for his Nick Sharman thrillers (the TV Sharman programmes — with Clive Owen — are being re-released on DVD). In the Sharman books, the London writer pulled off an impressive piece of sleight-of-hand: while giving every impression of gritty urban reality and the life of a cynical London private eye, the actual narratives functioned on an almost hyper-real level, with plausibility less important than sheer narrative momentum... 'This sketching in of plot cannot do justice to the intricacies of this novel's structure, nor its prose which, even in translation, is both challenging and playful. 'Nature is a labyrinth of distorting images,' a butterfly collector tells Sebastian as the latter prepares his murder trap...' A Game Of Sorrows Shona Maclean The Game of Sorrows makes stimulating company for a trip to 17th-century Carrickfergus. The Celtic atmosphere has striking pungency, and Seaton is a nicely idiosyncratic protagonist. His sometimes anachronistic 20th-century mindset is balanced against the prejudices of his time – he is prone to judge people by their religion, rather as Umberto Eco gave his otherwise modern-minded sleuth in The Name of the Rose some negative medieval views on women. Although the brio of the earlier book is more fitfully evident here, MacLean once again demonstrates that she is a distinctive talent... Barry Forshaw in The Independent Esteemed editor and anthologist Maxim Jakubowski's new crime fiction imprint MaxCrime hits the ground running with this exuberant and ambitious novel from a writer who is already something of a sensation in Australia. Hit by Tara Moss weighs in at a solid 563 pages, but there is nary a wasted word in this visceral novel from a writer who has been both a licensed private investigator and a firearms expert (not to mention snake handler and racing driver). Next 25 |
