As Covid 19 threatens to return us to almost the middle ages, or times of war, so many people appear in the UK to be hoarding toilet paper in their panic, while in the USA gun purchases are it appears 30% higher! As far as I am concerned, the cleanliness of your nether parts will certainly not be taken into consideration when you meet your Maker, should you be unlucky enough to fail in the current lottery we are facing. So all I can do is to ask you to stockpile books instead for all the time you will have to spend indoors, and how better to begin than this month’s selection…
BOOK OF THE MONTH
Joe Ide/HI-FIVE (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
The earlier novels in the Isaiah Quintabe series, introducing the endearing black version of a Junior Sherlock Holmes in the Los Angeles ghetto concentrated on his efforts to find out who had earlier killed his older brother, alongside his detecting exploits in a most colourful, if solidly realistic, of environments. Once that strand had been exhausted, the series felt weaker but I am pleased to report that this new volume is a welcome return to form. Isaiah’s love life is still as complicated, proving he might be a master sleuth but still can’t negotiate his relationships with women, and his world is turned upside down when an old flame returns just as he is tasked by a local gun-running gangster to prove his errant daughter Christiana was innocent of a crime where everything points to her, this under threat of his current, musician girlfriend being maimed. Alongside this, he aims to discover which local gang was responsible for the death of a much-respected shopkeeper in a drive-by shooting. The problem is that Christiana has multiple personalities, any of which could have been responsible for the crime the police are eager to pin on her. With time very much of the essence, IQ has to use not just his sleuthing skills but all his ingenuity to juggle cases, women and dangerous killers before his current house of cards collapses. With some shock narrative curve balls and Ide’s strong underlying humour, this is a wonderful read indeed.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Malcolm Pryce/THE CORPSE IN THE GARDEN OF PERFECT BRIGHTNESS (Bloomsbury)
A welcome return by the author of the quirky, poignant and utterly unique Aberystwyth noir series, which spanned six volumes before coming to a bittersweet end. Railway detective (and Gosling) Jack Wenlock, who was introduced in THE CASE OF THE ‘HAIL MARY’ CELESTE, is back on a quest for his lost mother, with new bride Jenny trooping alongside him, which takes them to Siam, following the end of WW2 to a world of lost Empire, mysteries and equally zany if at times moving characters. No one does bizarre with a tweak to the heart like Pryce, and this new instalment in our favourite orphan’s adventures encompasses Secret Service villains from Room 42, a giant tin of Golden Syrup, an avatar of King Kong, upper class Brits succumbing to the dangerous fever temptations of the East, deceitful natives and origami, flying boats, a mythical Hollywood actress and her doting mogul producer and a plot that races along with gusto, combining actual narrative and random pages from an apocryphal screenplay which shadows Jack and Jenny’s quest and might even contain the answers to their numerous questions about his own identity. It’s sheer pulp and all Ripping Yarns like in the good old days of adventure writing, but led with joyful irony. Absolutely delightful.
Peter Swanson/RULES FOR PERFECT MURDERS (Faber & Faber)
A clever and terribly entertaining change of pace from Swanson, with less emphasis on the noir mood and an affectionate appreciation of classic crime fiction in its tropes instead, this new novel -with a different title ‘EIGHT PERFECT MURDERS, in the USA – will be relished by mystery fans. Malcolm Kershaw is a mystery bookstore owner whose blog recommending some of his favourite books emerges some time later as a possible guideline for a series of actual real-life murders, clearly inspired by famous titles by Agatha Christie, James M. Cain, Patricia Highsmith, A.A.Milne, Frances Iles, John D. MacDonald, Donna Tartt and Ira Levin, and inevitably attracts the attention of the FBI. With a mischievous and unreliable narrator, this is Golden Age crime revisited with wit galore, a sheer celebration, and a treasury of twists. As the previous owner of a mystery bookshop, how could I not enjoy this modern homage to the craft of mystery writing allied with subversive wit? Not only will you enjoy Swanson’s love song to the genre but it could also make you want to re-read some of the wonderful titles it uses as a springboard for its manipulative charms. Ingenious, endearing and delightful.
Michael Nath/THE TREATMENT (Riverrun)
A far reaching, dialogue-heavy thriller initially set in 2011 in London from a mainstream and award-winning novelist that delivers a shifting panorama of our troubled society. Allusive, powerful, eccentric, multi-layered with moving levels of narrative, historical vignettes and stream of consciousness strands but ultimately highly rewarding once you allow your imagination to immerse within its pages. Partly inspired by the Stephen Lawrence stabbing affair, the novel highlights a similar racist crime and how the brutal thugs who committed it are left untouched, shielded under the protection of a notorious crime gang supremo. But a disgraced journalist on the downhill slide now working for a free newssheet will not let the case go away and involves his editor, a criminal lawyer, family and friends in a last ditch to revive the notorious crime and see justice done in some way. With a gallery of Londoners from all walks of life and both sides of the law, THE TREATMENT soon transforms in a hypnotic, repetitive manner into a widescreen, black and white panorama of London’s contemporary multiracial and divided society. Impressive and thought-provoking.
K. Ferrari/LIKE FLIES FROM AFAR (Canongate)
A rare example, translated into English, of a contemporary thriller from Argentina. And turbo-charged it certainly is. The novel introduces us to 24 hours in the life of the highly deplorable oligarch Luis Machi, a wealthy business man whose fortune has been built on the woes of others and one of the most deliberately unsympathetic characters to have featured in recent fiction, with a systematic cocaine habit that fuels his madness to the nth degree. The day begins badly when he discovers the handcuffed dead body of a stranger in the boot of his expensive car (a top of the range BMW, of course), which does little to improve his normally paranoiac mood. And then it only gets worse as we are offered flashbacks to how he ruthlessly acquired his wealth, his trophy wife, who is now threatening to leave him, two spoilt children, showcase house and all the vulgar accoutrements of over the top greed. The tale of his come-uppance is profane in the extreme, drug-fuelled, spins through the noir side of life and might not prove to everyone’s taste, but if you’re into dark, sardonic humour in the vein of Jim Thompson at his most dyspeptic you’re in for a wicked treat with a menu full of sex, corruption, Hunter Thompson-like binges on illegal substances and alcohol, and more illegal episodes than an episode of THE WIRE.
Marion Brunet/SUMMER OF RECKONING (Bitter Lemon Press)
A first translation into English of a rather singular and prolific French mystery author, this quiet but powerful novel ticks many righteous boxes and ably demonstrates how well crime fiction can add an important social dimension to its menu.
It’s a stifling summer in a remote part of the South of France Luberon countryside and two teenage sisters, Céline and Jo, respectively 16 and 15 years old, live in boredom in social housing with their parents, a strict father with a weakness for the bottle and a distracted mother who invariably fails to communicate with her daughters. Their lives navigate between the local fun fairs, the commercial mall and night incursions into the swimming pools of wealthier houses. When Céline falls pregnant by an outsider, passions and deep held resentments are set dangerously loose in the heat of the summer, unveiling a deep pool of racism, family tensions and ties challenged to the extreme alongside the fragile links that exist between sisters. This is domestic noir French-style and carries a strong punch, delving deep into everyday life psychology and the tipping point where all goes bad, and characters come to life in memorable way. Heavy but fascinating stuff.
Margarita Montimore/THE REARRANGED LIFE OF OONA LOCKHART (Gollancz)
Titled OONA OUT OF ORDER in the USA, this ingenious time slip novel elicits many a smile but doesn’t quite reach its potential, unlike such classics as Jack Finney’s TIME AFTER TIME or Ken Grimwood’s REPLAY. On New Year’s Eve of 1982, Oona Lockhart, at nineteen, has her whole life ahead of her and is faced by the choice between the opportunity of travel to London and study economics or remain back home to continue her love affair with music and a nice, if unexciting boyfriend. But on the stroke of midnight she faints and awakes next at the age of fifty one, to be greeted by a husband and a total lack of memories of the life she has missed. How she adapts to the situation and begins to order her existence as a similar mishap occurs on the following turning of the year and she again finds herself at another stage of her life, having to convey messages across the years to her old and new selves, with some assistance from a young friend whose own background is something of a mystery but is deeply connected to her recurring predicament. Add a quirky mother who never seems to age whileas Oona, does so but only mentally. Montimore traces a delicate web of ifs and complex relationships and survival, but it all feels a touch superficial and unsatisfactory, as if the author couldn’t quite grasp the mettle of her theme and dared write something darker and more realistic. Escapist if lightweight fun.
Marjorie Celona/HOW A WOMAN BECOMES A LAKE (Virago)
On New Year’s day 1986, in a small fishing community close to the Canadian border, Vera a thirty year old filmmaker and lecturer, goes out for a walk in the snowy woods with her dog and goes missing, not without previously calling the police claiming she has found a boy in the woods. Her car engine is still running and her dog has been left abandoned. Her husband, Denny Gusev, becomes the main suspect as they had been heard to argue the evening before. Officer Lewis Coté, however, remains unconvinced and investigates dissolute father Leo who was out with his two young sons who were also out at by the lake at Squire Point at the same time. The tale unfolds through a diversity of voices and the passing years and actually skirts magical realism territory without quite abandoning the sense of dread that noir can evoke, and proves emotionally gripping throughout, combining strong, literary writing and the pace and mystery of a proper thriller about ordinary lives caught in the wintery winds of turmoil. Recommended.
Michael Farris Smith/BLACKWOOD (No Exit Press)
Alongside William Boyle, from the same publishing stable, Michael Farris Smith, whose THE FIGHTER left indelible memories, demonstrates again that he is the master of down and dirty Americana noir. Centred around the rural Mississippi dying town of Red Bluff, which has seen far better days, we encounter gruff and sarcastic lawman Sheriff Myer confronted by a family of travelling grifters who turn his life upside down after their car breaks down on his territory. The kudzu-infested landscape Farris Smith evokes with atmospheric touches is a familiar one to crime fiction and evolves into the background for a tale of broken souls, including returning junkyard sculptor Colbert, local Bar owner Celia and sundry other driven Deep South souls striving for survival and some form of happiness. Madness, loss and violence are just a few of the plagues savaging this world which belongs in the present but nonetheless feels so strongly of the past. Bleak but wonderful.
Brian De Palma & Susan Lehman/ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? (Hard Case Crime)
The first novel by the famed Hollywood director comes with a heap of praise from Martin Scorsese, Brett Easton Ellis and others, but it strongly feels like a case of ‘big name’ solidarity, as the book is pretty awful. Visibly an original screenplay which failed to take off, what is I presume a novelisation by journalist Lehman is something of an embarrassment. Not a single character comes off sympathetic and one quickly tires of their corrupt and murderous disjointed comings and goings, while the actual writing has a knowing smirk and is littered with stylistic infelicities. Starring a cast of self-serving politicians and their fixers, women who use their sex as a weapon and whose ongoing naivety is insultingly patronising, the plot is all over the place and at the end of the day is no more than a landscape of bad people doing bad and repellent things, with no moral redemption or dark humour anywhere in sight. Jim Thompson could do this sort of thing and attract our interest, but De Palma gets nowhere near and the whole farrago turns out to be wholly unpleasant, and with loose ends a plenty and a final twist which is telegraphed ahead miles ahead. Had it been filmed, it would certainly have proven as dreadful, although I doubt any serious actress worth her salt would have agreed to take on any of the two major parts. Dispensable.
