Another romping tale of bloody murder in Norway, another serial killer on the loose and Harry Hole is the man to catch him. Oslo police aren't sure how he's killing his female victims; Hole has to be brought back from the hideaway he ran to after a near nervous breakdown following his heroics in The Snowman.
Showing posts with label crime fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crime fiction. Show all posts
Friday, 11 November 2011
Jo Nesbo: The Leopard Review
Another romping tale of bloody murder in Norway, another serial killer on the loose and Harry Hole is the man to catch him. Oslo police aren't sure how he's killing his female victims; Hole has to be brought back from the hideaway he ran to after a near nervous breakdown following his heroics in The Snowman.
Monday, 26 September 2011
Robert Crais Lullaby Town Review
The third Elvis Cole/Joe Pike novel sees Crais moving into Hollywood. Peter Alan Nelsen is the third best (ie most profitable) director in the world. What Peter wants, Peter gets. Peter actually wants a good slap but more of that anon.Thursday, 16 December 2010
Carl Hiaasen: Lucky You
Bode Gazzer and no-last-name Chub have won the lottery. The two-man white supremacist militia can arm itself to the teeth and live on beer and fried food for life. Sadly for them, there's a fly in the ointment - JoLayne Lucks has also won. Even worse, she's a woman, and worse still -- she has Black Skin. The only thing to do is cunningly beat her up and steal her ticket.Carl Hiaasen: Native Tongue
Set in Florida around a poor man's version of Disney World, you know this could get nasty, given Carl Hiaasen's views on Walt and "Team Rodent". You also know, when a policeman shoots dead a vole in chapter one, when a grandmother shoots the foot (twice) of a baddie she hired to kidnap the vole, that Hiaasen's eye for the absurd is functioning as well as ever.Sunday, 12 December 2010
Carl Hiaasen: Double Whammy
Largemouth bass fishing. That should turn you off this review of Carl Hiaasen's second novel. Has JR Hartley written a thriller? Preposterous.
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Ross Thomas: Out On The Rim
We meet one of Thomas's recurring characters, Booth Stallings, for the first time in this tale of spies, conmen and guerillas set in the Philippines. Then a WW2 second lieutenant, he watches his irregular companion behead a mad medic to keep their position safe, a hell of a bonding exercise as we later come to discover.
Ross Thomas: The Singapore Wink
Salvatore Callese and sidekick Palmisano want retired stuntman Ed Cauthorne to find Angelo Sacchetti. This is problematic as Cauthorne killed Sacchetti two years earlier in a film stunt that went wrong. It's also a problem as Sacchetti, of course, didn't die -- but had good reasons for faking it. His godfather, Mafia fixer Charles Cole, sent the two aged killers to Cauthorne because of their powers of persuasion ...
Sunday, 5 December 2010
Ross Thomas: Twilight At Mac's Place
The famous bar has long ago moved from West Germany to Washington but Mac and Padillo are ready as ever to help the good guys in this tale of old spies, dead spies and old, cold spies.
Ex CIA agent Steadfast Haynes has popped his clogs, leaving behind a potentially explosive set of memoirs. Decades of action abroad would have given him more material than Wikileaks could handle so the risk for the US government, and especially for certain smug aristocrats of the secret world, is enormous. Estranged son Granville has been bequeathed the memoirs - before the body's cold the bad guys are wondering whether to kill him or bribe him (if they can't just steal the document).
Ex CIA agent Steadfast Haynes has popped his clogs, leaving behind a potentially explosive set of memoirs. Decades of action abroad would have given him more material than Wikileaks could handle so the risk for the US government, and especially for certain smug aristocrats of the secret world, is enormous. Estranged son Granville has been bequeathed the memoirs - before the body's cold the bad guys are wondering whether to kill him or bribe him (if they can't just steal the document).
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
Stieg Larsson: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest
Final volume in Larsson's Millennium Trilogy and the focus switches to Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo, misanthropic hacker and survivor. She has to face the power of the Swedish state in two guises: a corrupt group of secret operatives and the State proper.
Salander faces murder charges: she has the unwanted help of the crusading magazine Millennium and editor Blomqvist's sister, a lawyer. Against her she has the state, the spies, Hell's Angels and a psychopathic killer who feels no pain. Can she use her extraordinary skills (computer hacking, disguise, violence) and will her actions hinder those who are trying to help her? Well, yes and yes are the obvious answers but one of Larsson's skills lies in handling the different threads of the plot, bringing them together and hurling them apart as necessary, like speeding cars trying to knock each other off the road.
More of the secrets of Salander's tormented past are teased out, explaining how the confrontations of her adult life are just about inevitable. Yet the only person who wouldn't use that past as excuse or explanation is Salander herself.
All this is neatly counterpointed by the good guys of the law agonising over the intricacies of the Swedish constitution (don't knock them, look at how long it takes to free an innocent person in the UK, then wait eight years for piddling compensation because a judge doesn't like you). Some of the final resolution of these conflicts is a little rushed and flawed, almost as though it's the author who's trying to convince himself rather than the reader. A minor cavil.
Recommended? Absolutely. Thrilling, horrible, violent, sad, ultimately uplifting. Make sure you read this as the last of the three though.
See The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo -- The Book and The Movies for a discussion of books and both Swedish and US movies.
Salander faces murder charges: she has the unwanted help of the crusading magazine Millennium and editor Blomqvist's sister, a lawyer. Against her she has the state, the spies, Hell's Angels and a psychopathic killer who feels no pain. Can she use her extraordinary skills (computer hacking, disguise, violence) and will her actions hinder those who are trying to help her? Well, yes and yes are the obvious answers but one of Larsson's skills lies in handling the different threads of the plot, bringing them together and hurling them apart as necessary, like speeding cars trying to knock each other off the road.
More of the secrets of Salander's tormented past are teased out, explaining how the confrontations of her adult life are just about inevitable. Yet the only person who wouldn't use that past as excuse or explanation is Salander herself.
All this is neatly counterpointed by the good guys of the law agonising over the intricacies of the Swedish constitution (don't knock them, look at how long it takes to free an innocent person in the UK, then wait eight years for piddling compensation because a judge doesn't like you). Some of the final resolution of these conflicts is a little rushed and flawed, almost as though it's the author who's trying to convince himself rather than the reader. A minor cavil.
Recommended? Absolutely. Thrilling, horrible, violent, sad, ultimately uplifting. Make sure you read this as the last of the three though.
See The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo -- The Book and The Movies for a discussion of books and both Swedish and US movies.
Monday, 29 November 2010
Stieg Larsson: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
First volume in the world-wide success that is Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. This combines a whodunit for a decades-old murder, a journalistic exposition of financial shenanigans, an array of personal relationships, a social commentary and more. Most importantly, it introduces the two main characters: financial journalist Carl Mikael Blomqvist and one of the most unusual (and unwanting) heroines of crime fiction for decades: Lisbeth Salander.
Salander is the girl with the dragon tattoo: she is the girl mistreated for years by the asylums and social services of Sweden, she is the hacker and fighter who goes unnoticed by all bar a few. Dismissed as stupid, near-autistic, a nonentity by those in authority, abused by professionals, her gifts and her courage drag her up to a crucial role in this book.
Okay then, I'm not sure if those two paragraphs will have scared you off or left you curious. Hopefully the latter and you're reading this third paragraph! Larsson's novel is a triumph of a debut: gripping, dark, incident-packed and written in a style all of his own. Slow in starting however, read only the first few pages and you will misjudge the book. Read a few chapters and you'll be hooked. You'll probably also be shocked and outraged at some of the content but that shouldn't put you off -- this is a book that plays you like a fish on a line. Order the next one in the trilogy before you finish this one -- you'll be angry with yourself if you have to wait for more.
Daftest comment from a reviewer (though overall he gave a favourable review): "It's hard to find fault with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. One must struggle with bewildering Swedish names" Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post.
Well yes, one might expect a few of those in a book set in Sweden, written by a Swede!
See The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo -- The Book and The Movies for a discussion of books and both Swedish and US movies.
Salander is the girl with the dragon tattoo: she is the girl mistreated for years by the asylums and social services of Sweden, she is the hacker and fighter who goes unnoticed by all bar a few. Dismissed as stupid, near-autistic, a nonentity by those in authority, abused by professionals, her gifts and her courage drag her up to a crucial role in this book.
Okay then, I'm not sure if those two paragraphs will have scared you off or left you curious. Hopefully the latter and you're reading this third paragraph! Larsson's novel is a triumph of a debut: gripping, dark, incident-packed and written in a style all of his own. Slow in starting however, read only the first few pages and you will misjudge the book. Read a few chapters and you'll be hooked. You'll probably also be shocked and outraged at some of the content but that shouldn't put you off -- this is a book that plays you like a fish on a line. Order the next one in the trilogy before you finish this one -- you'll be angry with yourself if you have to wait for more.
Daftest comment from a reviewer (though overall he gave a favourable review): "It's hard to find fault with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. One must struggle with bewildering Swedish names" Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post.
Well yes, one might expect a few of those in a book set in Sweden, written by a Swede!
See The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo -- The Book and The Movies for a discussion of books and both Swedish and US movies.
Stieg Larsson
Stieg Larsson was a Swedish journalist, little known outside his homeland and even then only familiar to those who read his financial and political articles. Nothing prepared the world, and I use "world" advisedly, for the trilogy of novels he was to produce. The three manuscripts were delivered shortly before his death in 2004 and have since, as happens far too rarely, justified the rapturous clichés from all sides. They truly are amazing works, in concept, scope and execution.
Scandinavian authors (and poets and musicians) bring a certain bleakness to their work. The good ones use it as their canvas, the great writers weave it in to the lyricism of the words they produce. Larsson combines that lyricism with a style based on his journalistic expertise and an expert sense of timing to produce great sweeping novels that never let up.
I've just deleted the words "he throws in" as they would be a mis-description. Along the way he gently injects moments of pain and horror, tempering the novelist's craft with the journalist's avoidance of editorialising. Where a lesser writer might lapse into buckets-of-blood excess, he guides readers to form their own opinions and emotions. He doesn't need to state that something is wrong or a huge injustice, his readers do it for him.
After reading the trilogy I was left almost angry that his early death has robbed us of more. If this is the quality of his first works, his later ones would have been magnificent.
The Millennium Trilogy reviewed:
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest
There are a couple of sad footnotes to his demise. An unfinished fourth manuscript is reliably said to exist. More importantly for those close to him, he died intestate and his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, did not therefore inherit what is now estimated at a £30 million fortune from the three novels. An unseemly feud between her and his father/brother have seen her cut out of the picture. Said Stieg's father, Joakim, "We found out in January 2005 that we would automatically inherit everything. I wrote to Eva and explained that under Swedish law we had to accept the will, but we could choose to give everything - his half of the apartment, and his savings - to her. It came to around £150,000." Good of him. The only thing that all apparently agree on is that the unfinished manuscript will stay unfinished and unpublished.
"Eating in Sweden is really just a series of heartbreaks." Bill Bryson
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| Original cover: see Peter Mendelsund's blog |
See The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo -- The Book and The Movies for a discussion of books and both Swedish and US movies.
Stuart MacBride: Dark Blood
Dark in the title and dark in mood as a convicted kidnapper/rapist is resettled in Aberdeen after serving his prison time. DS Logan McRae is one of the reluctant coppers assigned to keep the man safe. Little does he know that the pitchfork-waving mob isn't the only danger and that the criminal past of the bible-reading pervert will threaten the health of more than the one who deserves it.
As a sub-plot we have Edinburgh heavies moving in, crooked property developers (and Donald Trump, not crooked, of course, up yours lawyers), Logan's getting a bit out of his depth with Wee Hamish Mowat - and Hamish's preferred depth for those who annoy him is six feet under.
Alongside MacRae's usual broad canvas of Aberdeen rain and pain he shows several smaller, gloomier scenes, well-described to lend contrast to the work, and all the better for it.
The book stands alone but I'd recommend you read one or two of the earlier Logan McRae novels first.
As a sub-plot we have Edinburgh heavies moving in, crooked property developers (and Donald Trump, not crooked, of course, up yours lawyers), Logan's getting a bit out of his depth with Wee Hamish Mowat - and Hamish's preferred depth for those who annoy him is six feet under.
Alongside MacRae's usual broad canvas of Aberdeen rain and pain he shows several smaller, gloomier scenes, well-described to lend contrast to the work, and all the better for it.
The book stands alone but I'd recommend you read one or two of the earlier Logan McRae novels first.
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Stuart MacBride: Broken Skin
Second in the series of Logan McRae novels, and maintaining the high standard of the first, Broken Skin is another romp through Aberdeen's lowlives and a distressing insight into the alcohol and deep-fried diet of the granite city's plods.
The two main strands of this novel are the attempt to capture a serial rapist and the search for a murderer with more interest in leather goods and marital aids than is good for you. As the victim found out. For the former we already have a strong candidate - unfortunately he's a star footballer with a sly lawyer and a high degree of cunning. Logan's now live-in girlfriend, WPC Ballbreaker Watson, is after chummy and there's a strong feeling that if she can't get her man she'll at least get his soft squidgy bits.
As to the hunt for the murderer, the denouement will have you both snorting with laughter and curling your toes. A tour de force scene for the wonderful DI Steel (she's the half-insane, chainsmoking, bacon-sarnie munching lesbian), it ends with a constable who'll never eat sliced bread again - I won't say any more lest I spoil the scene.
Throw in an eight year old who exhibits the savagery craved by a Daily Mail headline writer (knife child murders war hero) to keep DS McRae busy, plus a few more police matters to keep him from the pub, and you have yet another great read from Stuart MacBride. You can read this without having seen the first novel (though perhaps better to have read Cold Granite); if you do I can guarantee that you'll be searching out that and the rest of the series.
The two main strands of this novel are the attempt to capture a serial rapist and the search for a murderer with more interest in leather goods and marital aids than is good for you. As the victim found out. For the former we already have a strong candidate - unfortunately he's a star footballer with a sly lawyer and a high degree of cunning. Logan's now live-in girlfriend, WPC Ballbreaker Watson, is after chummy and there's a strong feeling that if she can't get her man she'll at least get his soft squidgy bits.
As to the hunt for the murderer, the denouement will have you both snorting with laughter and curling your toes. A tour de force scene for the wonderful DI Steel (she's the half-insane, chainsmoking, bacon-sarnie munching lesbian), it ends with a constable who'll never eat sliced bread again - I won't say any more lest I spoil the scene.
Throw in an eight year old who exhibits the savagery craved by a Daily Mail headline writer (knife child murders war hero) to keep DS McRae busy, plus a few more police matters to keep him from the pub, and you have yet another great read from Stuart MacBride. You can read this without having seen the first novel (though perhaps better to have read Cold Granite); if you do I can guarantee that you'll be searching out that and the rest of the series.
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Stuart MacBride: Cold Granite
"Dead things had always been special to him."
So begins the first of the Logan McRae novels, where Aberdeen's finest hunt desperately for a serial child killer. Both aided and taunted by a cynical and ruthless reporter, DS McRae and his semi-bodyguard WPC "Ballbreaker" Watson career through the rain-sodden tenements and byways in a race to recover missing children before they become further tragic victims. Gargantuan sweet-eater DI Insch drives McRae and all around to near despair as the author marries acidly-described police procedural to a spiral of crime and chase that teeters ever more desperately on the edge of disaster.
Stuart MacBride manages the difficult task of handling a description of the hunt for a child-killer whilst also giving free rein to black humour and almost manic police behaviour. Along the way we meet a host of characters from Aberdeen's underworld, including Desperate Doug MacDuff, so called because he choked someone to death with a rolled-up copy of the Dandy. "Quite the ladykiller in his day" says DI Steel from behind a cloud of illicit cigarette fumes, "But we couldn't prove it." Take it for granted that Logan will regret meeting this bitter old villain ...
If you like grown-up crime fiction , if you like your humour grim, this is the author for you. Too often first novels promise without achieving much (or even worse, completely flatter to deceive). No such issues here, MacBride kicks you in the goolies at the start and keeps the steel-capped boots going throughout, though the blades and the dog's teeth do sharpen things up a touch. Thoroughly recommended.
So begins the first of the Logan McRae novels, where Aberdeen's finest hunt desperately for a serial child killer. Both aided and taunted by a cynical and ruthless reporter, DS McRae and his semi-bodyguard WPC "Ballbreaker" Watson career through the rain-sodden tenements and byways in a race to recover missing children before they become further tragic victims. Gargantuan sweet-eater DI Insch drives McRae and all around to near despair as the author marries acidly-described police procedural to a spiral of crime and chase that teeters ever more desperately on the edge of disaster.
Stuart MacBride manages the difficult task of handling a description of the hunt for a child-killer whilst also giving free rein to black humour and almost manic police behaviour. Along the way we meet a host of characters from Aberdeen's underworld, including Desperate Doug MacDuff, so called because he choked someone to death with a rolled-up copy of the Dandy. "Quite the ladykiller in his day" says DI Steel from behind a cloud of illicit cigarette fumes, "But we couldn't prove it." Take it for granted that Logan will regret meeting this bitter old villain ...
If you like grown-up crime fiction , if you like your humour grim, this is the author for you. Too often first novels promise without achieving much (or even worse, completely flatter to deceive). No such issues here, MacBride kicks you in the goolies at the start and keeps the steel-capped boots going throughout, though the blades and the dog's teeth do sharpen things up a touch. Thoroughly recommended.
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