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Friday 10th September | |||||||||||
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Reviews and Articles listed A-Z by author >> ReviewsThe Tears Of Autumn/the Miernik Dossier Charles Mccarry Described on several occasions as the greatest espionage novel ever written, The Tears of Autumn, Charles McCarry's remarkable study of human duplicity and foreign affairs, was a noted success right from its initial publication. McCarry's subject was the events surrounding the assassination of John F Kennedy; his protagonist, US spook Paul Christopher, proved to be one of the most durable and intriguing characters in the genre Tobias Jones's lacerating non-fiction exposé The Dark Heart of Italy set out his stall as anatomist of Berlusconi's compromised nation. But does Jones have the novelistic smarts to parley his knowledge into a detective series? His strategy is to drop a very Chandlerian private eye into an unnamed Italian town (readers may pick up on references to the local ham), and weave a labyrinthine plot for the detective, Castagnetti, to tackle. Barry Forshaw in The Independent The narrative here is inspired by a real-life kidnapping, but Mina parleys this into something richer and stranger than the real case, taking on board politics, racism and a prickly but basically sympathetic community. The final effect of Still Midnight is both unsettling and exhilarating... Barry Forshaw in The Independent It's easy to persuade people who've never been there that Glasgow is a hellhole, though the mean city has changed a lot since the 1930s. With his latest book – a break from the Aberdeen series – Macbride has leapt forward to the middle of the 21st century, to find Glasgow no better than she ever was (supposedly)... Imagine that your older brother is one of the world's most famous writers of American thrillers – even though he happens to be British. Daunting, perhaps, if you chose to follow a similar career... or a spur to match your sibling's immense success? Fortunately for readers, Andrew Grant appears to have adopted the latter course, and with his remarkable debut novel, Even, he has pulled out all the stops to produce something quite as full-throttle as anything by his brother (who just happens to be Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series)... Barry Forshaw in The Express Susanne, out of work and down on her luck, gets a rare job interview – at which she meets a woman who looks quite like her. This woman is richer, more forceful, more successful – yet Susanne initially doesn't care. Getting a job is more important. But things take a surprising turn: having been virtually promised the job, she is turned down. Someone calls at her flat to conduct a 'survey'. And her doppelganger, Nadia, not only insists in maintaining contact but offers her a lot of money if she – you've guessed – will stand in for her... Reading Henning Mankell's Wallander in shorter stories provides an interesting perspective into what makes the detective work—and and more importantly how Manning himself approaches him. This collection includes two long stories: the opener, here titled 'Wallander's First Case', is a novella, and the title story, 'The Pyramid', which ends the book, could have easily been published alone as a short novel... The Lovers, like most of Connolly's books, creates an enormous panoply for his skirmishes between the forces of good and evil with metaphysics and sometimes the supernatural stirred into a very rich stew...Barry Forshaw in The Express on The Lovers Blotto, Twinks And The Ex-king's Daughter Simon Brett Only now can it be revealed that this novel was not written by Simon Brett. It is, surely, the fabled lost collaboration between P G Wodehouse, Agatha Christie and Miss Sayers and based, it is rumoured, on an unpublished scenario by John Buchan and Anthony Hope The Spirit Volume 3 Aragones Et Al Will Eisner's Spirit remains the standard by which all comics should be judged, story-telling that defined the form for generations of writers and artists to come. Eisner's stories were humorous little moral tales, a cross between O. Henry and Issac Bashevis Singer, told in a cinematic style that emphasized the tongue in cheek nature of the masked detective while treating the story-telling very seriously indeed. It remains a difficult combination to imitate. The Resurrectionist Jack O'Connnell The once-despised comic-book genre has now achieved literary gravitas as the graphic novel. Comics scribes such as Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman are routinely compared to the most ambitious "literary" writers. Salman Rushdie has admitted to being an expert on the Justice League of America, though T S Eliot kept quieter about his devotion to Krazy Kat. But this belated embracing of a popular art has gone further; several writers have folded comic-strip concepts into the superstructure of their books: Michael Chabon in The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Jodi Picoult in The Tenth Circle. Perhaps the most radical interpolation of comics into the novel is that by Jack O'Connell in The Resurrectionist...Barry Forshaw in The Independent The days of mystery novels full of cardboard characters, red herrings, and the unlikeliest suspect being guilty are well and truly over. Few crimewriters now follow the old Agatha Christie formula, but Laura Wilson shows precisely how archaic they are. N J Cooper (whose latest novel, No Escape, is published by Simon & Schuster). reviews Laura Wilson's second outing for DI Ted Statton. Roadside Crosses Jeffrey Deaver When it comes to electronic social networking, blogs and twitter, some of us take to such things like ducks to water, while others steer well clear – for as long as they can. If you're of the latter persuasion, Jeffrey Deaver's new novel will be grist to your mill: here, the latest technology (and its obsessive practitioners) can be downright dangerous... Barry Forshaw in The Express on the new Deaver As dawn breaks, she sees a man approaching her from the nearby trees. He is naked. It is the last thing Katrine will ever see. No intrigue lost in this translation...Barry Forshaw in The Independent on the remarkable new novel by KO Dahl Nadelson's already good series about Russian-American cop Artie Cohen keeps getting better. This one moves beyond a mere cop novel to become a gripping, state-of-our-new-world novel David's Revenge Hans Werner Kettenbach This is a dark psychological drama with an underlying threat of violence where individual and social morality is constantly questioned. Racism, nationalism and xenophobia are amongst the uncomfortable subjects that Kettenbach explores in this sinister but fascinating rumination on the true nature of revenge Ballsy female police protagonists may be two a penny nowadays - Jane Tennison has a lot to answer for - but Leigh Russell's debut novel Cut Short features one of the more interesting specimens of the genre. Geraldine Steel is a DI on the Murder Investigation Team in the seemingly quiet village of Woolsmarsh (in crime fiction, village are always 'seemingly' quiet). This one happens to be plagued by a serial killer who is targeting young women Drawing from real life aside, this is thriller writing of a rare order: old-fashioned in the best sense of the phrase and keeping a perfect balance between the unravelling of a decades-old mystery and a son's search for closure. Barry Forshaw in The Express on The Warning Bell, a breath of fresh air in an often superficial genre The Fate Of Katherine Carr Thomas H Cook Thomas Cook's characters are often haunted, but they usually are forced to face, and sometimes resolve, the past without recourse to the supernatural. However, when supernatural elements begin to intrude in his latest novel, The Fate Of Katherine Carr, it seems as normal as anything else in the day-to-day life of George Gates Roadside Crosses Jeffery Deaver "It's easy to buy a cheap computer and a website and some blog software and in five minutes you've got a venue for your personal opinions—a venue that will be seen by millions of people around the world." That's the threat at the heart of Deaver's second Kathryn Dance thriller In The Independent, Barry Forshaw looks at evidence of a high-risk trend in British crime writing: perhaps aware that readers are wearying of burnt-out, alcoholic or damaged detectives, writers such as Laura Wilson have made their heroes relatively untroubled: family men, non-addictive personalities, not at loggerheads with superiors. This more quotidian copper also sports fewer tics (possibly remembering Agatha Christie, who regretted saddling Poirot with eccentric habits).
Gary Lovisi has long been one of the key authorities on the gloriously lurid art of pulp paperbacks, with their parade of alluring half-dressed temptresses/murderesses/victims, and this handsomely illustrated volume is perhaps his most entertaining contribution to the burgeoning field of reprints of such material Some Rain Must Fall Michel Faber It's fair to say that the author of this fascinating collection of short stories has had an equally fascinating life - Michel Faber was born in the Netherlands, grew up in Australia and now has his home in the Scottish Highlands. He has been, variously, a nurse, a pickle-packer and a guinea pig for medical research. These fifteen stories reflect his unconventional background, clearly showing he's a writer who enjoys playing with words and dipping in and out of genres as the mood takes him The literary crime novel is a hard nut to crack. But I'm pleased to say that newcomer Anne-Sophie Brasme's debut, Breathe, manages to satisfy both camps - the literary intelligentsia who think 'plot' is a dirty word, and the ordinary Joe Punter who just wants a page-turner of a story Angel With Two Faces Nicola Upson In the world of cosies it's surprising how uncosy life can be. Nicola Upson won't thank me for calling this a cosy but it's a Cornish mystery, set in 1935, in which family secrets are unearthed by a Scotland Yard inspector returned on holiday Previous 25 Next 25 |
