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Bad Signs, R.J. Ellory25/11/2011 - 11:44amEvery now and then, along comes one of those books. The sort that makes you look at people who make statements like "I NEVER read genre fiction" with just that little bit of sadness for what they are missing. That's not to say that BAD SIGNS is the sort of book that everyone is going to enjoy, but for any readers looking for something that will really make you think, take you into some very uncomfortable places, and be profoundly challenged, then it will be an outstanding book. Strange as it may seem from the blurb, this is a book about hope. Albeit brutally wrapped up ... Read Review |
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ABC Dead, Ethan Youngblood31/10/2011 - 4:00pmThis book has been sitting on the pile in the corner that came from somewhere I've completely forgotten about - and it's been on that pile for quite a few years now. So I thought I should pick it up and "get on with it". Probably shouldn't have bothered. Definitely not my style - trying too hard to be arch and sort of funny, with a plot that simply didn't work on any level and to be honest, when I got to "he said satanically" very nearly became a DNF. Really only got to the end out of sheer bloodymindedness on my part.Read Review |
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How the Dead See, David Owen12/09/2011 - 1:16pmIt's just so heartening to know that the Pufferfish Series lives on that it's difficult to remain objective about the latest book. HOW THE DEAD SEE is the second of the re-emergence of David Owen's much loved, acerbic, dry, funny, dark and quite prickly Detective Inspector Franz Heineken. There are some things that never change in these books - Pufferfish (his nickname is a direct correlation between Heineken's prickly, dangerous, lurking personality and that of the fish in question), is, as always, dry, prickly, and acerbic, with the addition of being quietly and ... Read Review |
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A Bali Conspiracy Most Foul, Shamini Flint17/08/2011 - 1:10pmThe second Inspector Singh novel from Shamini Flint takes Singh to Bali to join the anti-terrorism efforts post a major bombing that ripped through the tourist areas. What exactly Singh is doing as part of a anti-terrorism squad is no clearer to him than it is to anybody else, but the body in the wreckage, shot dead before the bomb gives Singh the sort of case that he's used to solving - a straight-forward murder. When I read the first book (A MOST PECULIAR MALAYSIAN MURDER) I did comment "This book is definitely on the lighter side of crime fiction, I'll have to read ... Read Review |
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Crosskill, Garry Disher16/08/2011 - 4:37pmCROSSKILL is another of my Wyatt series rereads - just because I want to. This book, in particular, really takes on the bad guys. Wyatt may not immediately seem to have much of a moral conscience when it comes to taking other people's money - but he does think honour amongst thieves is important. Especially where his money is concerned. As with all the Wyatt series, Wyatt plays a lone hand, with just a little help (and hindrance) from his friends. But when trouble arrives it hits him from all sides. Wyatt will, of course triumph in the end. There will be ... Read Review |
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A Man You Can Bank On, Derek Hansen06/07/2011 - 5:11pmI don't know - maybe it's because the book is set in a small country town struggling to survive (and I live 20 kilometres or so out of just such a town), or maybe it was the line on the opening page "He had the sort of body normally achieved by eating plankton.", but I was particularly disposed to liking A MAN YOU CAN BANK ON. It's not going to come as much of a surprise that this is a bit of a romp style novel. There's the local town bank manager, a disgraced cop sent to the outback to serve his time, the bank manager's daughter, the local animatronics expert, a bloke ... Read Review |
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Whispering Death, Garry Disher30/06/2011 - 3:09pmPut a book with Garry Disher's name on the cover down on the table at our place and there's bound to be a bit of sighing from certain quarters. Fair enough, it normally means that all forms of communication will cease until the book is finished. Whilst I will admit a slight preference for the Wyatt series, the Challis and Destry books are getting better and better with each outing. I particularly like the way that the focus is switching between the two main characters, and their romance is developing but not taking over from what is, after all, an excellent police procedural. I've ... Read Review |
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Paydirt, Garry Disher01/06/2011 - 5:09pmWyatt is back in a new adventure set on the far side of morality. Introduced in Kickback, Garry Disher's fast-selling, widely praised crime novel, Wyatt reappears in the South Australian outback, intent on snatching a payroll. But Wyatt is not the only one eyeing the funds. The Outfit has business with Wyatt. It will only be finished when he faces the hitman's gun. Garry Disher's highly controlled, fast-paced style brilliantly matches this tense, unnerving story of treachery and rough justice.Read Review |
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An Accidental Terrorist, Steven Lang24/05/2011 - 4:30pmA f2f bookclub read, I started this book with high hopes, having just finished another with what seemed like a similar concept. A scenario that had some serious potential, this book started off okay but quickly just seemed to degenerate into a mish-mash of making the reader feel sorry (attracted to / interested in) a central character that was just... well boring. Unfortunately this feeling of being bored was compounded by some extremely predictable events, actions and outcomes. Perhaps the idea was to show how somebody unwittingly gets involved with things that they shouldn't. ... Read Review |
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1222, Anne Holt17/04/2011 - 5:50pmTake one gloriously grumpy central protagonist, add that train crash, include a massive snowstorm cutting off a train full of people 1222 metres above sea level in an inaccessible hotel, add a mysterious locked carriage and a group of shadowy unknown passengers, then kill off a high-profile passenger and see what happens. What happens is that our grumpy protagonist, Hanne Wilhemlsen, ex-police officer, in a wheelchair as a result of being shot on duty, has to work out what is going on before the body count continues to increase. With no official help from the outside, ... Read Review |
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The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy, James Anderson15/04/2011 - 2:51pmYes, yes, I know. What am I doing reading a book like THE AFFAIR OF THE BLOODSTAINED EGG COSY. In my defence I used to be quite a SPLASHER (4MA speak for somebody who reads a wide range of crime book "styles") although in recent years I will admit I've moved more and more to the dark side. But every now and then I like a bit of a splash around in the lighter side of the genre, and I do rather like the eccentric side of the classic English country house sub-genre. Chuck in a slightly batty Lord; an unflappable Lady; a house with secret passages; a poor cousin / secretary / jolly ... Read Review |
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Zulu, Caryl Férey12/04/2011 - 12:49pmUnbelievably violent, amazingly confrontational, searingly honest and profoundly emotional, ZULU is one of those books that you may have to read through spread fingers, but it is almost impossible to put this book down until it screeches to an ending that will make you shudder. This is noir, critical, brutal writing at it's absolute best. The "Zulu" of the title refers not so much to the tribe as a whole, but to Cape Town homicide captain Ali Neuman. Heading up the investigation into the death of a young woman whose body is found with a crushed skull, Neuman accepts that ... Read Review |
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A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder, Shamini Flint24/03/2011 - 5:38pmThink Hercule Poirot in a Sikh turban and the tropical heat of Kuala Lumpur, but add a hefty dose of rumpled Columbo and I think that's the best description of Inspector Singh of the Singapore police that I can come up with. A MOST PECULIAR MALAYSIAN MURDER is the first in this series from Singapore based author Shamini Flint. This book is definitely on the lighter side of crime fiction, I'll have to read the next couple that I have here to be able to say if that's an ongoing characteristic, but I'm guessing it's probably exactly where the books are heading. Whilst ... Read Review |
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An Object in Motion, Ronald S. Barrios15/03/2011 - 2:18pmNovellas must present an author with a series of quite specific challenges - developing a plot, circumstances and resolution with enough development of enough character's to give the story some depth and engagement for a reader. Given that I've recently been reading quite a bit of Pulp Fiction I was really interested to see how Barrios would do this in a current day story. And it has to be said, in an AN OBJECT IN MOTION, Barrios has pulled off all of the major requirements - with a nice touch of cynical humour that worked really well. Not that this novella reads as a ... Read Review |
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Dark Blood, Stuart MacBride10/03/2011 - 3:43pmThe problem with an author making it onto my "Pre-Order IMMEDIATELY list" is that once the book arrives I have that dreaded "do I read immediately or hoard" dilemma. It's easier with some of my all time favourite authors - there's a few, well not to put too fine a point on it, aren't as young as they used to be. Stuart MacBride, on the other hand, is a young man. Last time I set eyes on him he looked to be in remarkably good health. But still, you never know. Publishers are queer folk and they may suddenly have a brain freeze, or worse still, Stuart may just get distracted by ... Read Review |
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Before I Go to Sleep, S.J. Watson21/02/2011 - 4:07pmBEFORE I GO TO SLEEP is the story of a woman who wakes up every morning beside a stranger. She's completely forgotten the last 25+ years of her life. A woman in her late 40's, she can remember her 20's but she only gets glimpses, erratic flashes of her life since then. The man she wakes up beside every morning reminds her, yet again, that he is her husband Ben and that he will look after her. The house has photos in strategic places, there are notes on the board in the kitchen to remind her what she needs to do. What's particularly creepy about this scenario is that the reader is ... Read Review |
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Why She Loves Him, Wendy James29/01/2011 - 11:34amHaving just loved WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? when I read it last year, I was really pleased to find this collection of short stories by Wendy James. Whilst not crime fiction, these stories expore a range of themes from extremely fragile friendships, awkward parent-child relationships, unhappy marriages and longing. All of these stories vary in their style and content, many of them skating lightly through the subject matter, others pulling the reader into the ... Read Review |
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A Death in Tuscany, Michele Giuttari21/01/2011 - 5:11pmA DEATH IN TUSCANY is the second book from former Florence police chief Michele Guittari, billed as a bestseller in Italy and translated into nine languages. I was particularly interested to read this as the first book A FLORENTINE DEATH had a number of elements which didn't work at all for me, and I wanted to see if this was first book syndrome or more to do with this particular author's style of storytelling. A DEATH IN TUSCANY starts out with the discovery of the body of a girl near a small Tuscan hill town. Scantily dressed, no identification, the problem for police ... Read Review |
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Bad Intentions, Karin Fossum01/09/2010 - 5:41pmKarin Fossum is an author who uses observation acutely, whilst being more than willing to play with both expectations and the outer reaches of readers' comfort zones. Each of her books uses a different type of scenario to explore human behaviour and quirks. In BAD INTENTIONS she is looking at the nature of manipulation, conscience, and absolute and total egocentricity. She's also very very good at creepy - be it the characters or the setting, and in BAD INTENTIONS there's some of each. BAD INTENTIONS is the ninth novel overall, seventh available in English, from ... Read Review |
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Criminal Tendencies, Lynne Patrick (editor)20/08/2010 - 4:37pmIn his foreword to this fantastic collection Mark Billingham points out so many of the mysteries behind the decline of the short story. In these days of short periods of available quiet time for reading, it does seem strange that fewer and fewer short story collections seem to be published. Without or without a theme, I really like this sort of book - that mixes in well-known and lesser known authors. For a start you can play games with yourself and see if you can pick the writer from the style - rather than checking out their name. You also get a very direct comparison base from ... Read Review |