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.

Would you like fries with your cancer?

I should be inured to the horrors issuing from the callous Conservatives by now but no, they've managed to surpass themselves. Verily, as they claim to be Christian, Jesus must have said, "Take up thy bed and work."

A bit of background. Prime Minister David (call me Dave) Cameron, Chancellor George (the one who didn't go to Eton) Osborne and little Nicky Clegg (the one nobody cares about) want to cut the amount spent on Disability Benefit. This is money that goes to people who are unable to work through sickness or disability. There are two ways to do this:

Robert Crais: Stalking The Angel, Reviewed

Second in the Cole/Pike series, Robert Crais moves into darker territory on this one. Bradley Warren, rich businessman, has lost a loaned work of art, a 13th Century Japanese manuscript called the Hagakure. Elvis Cole's agency has been recommended to Warren, though Cole's flippancy fails to appeal to the pompous millionaire.

Rosemary and time

"What will it be?" they ask. "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Perhaps he's about to witter on about healing all wounds, or wounding all heels." If I give you a farther clue and ask you to bare with me you'll probably get it - common English errors - a catalogue of them I've recently put together.

Robert Crais: The Monkey's Raincoat Review

"She went back into the kitchen. When she didn't come out for a while I went to see. She was standing with one hand on the counter and one hand atop her head. Her glasses were off and her chest was heaving and there was a puddle of tears on the tile counter by the glasses. Streamers of mucus ran down from her nose. All of that, but you couldn't hear her."

Robert Crais

Robert Crais is one of a group of US authors who've had a good grounding in the greats of detective fiction and forged a more literary path while preserving much of the good of the genre. He cites Chandler as a major influence and there are indeed echoes of the master, albeit updated to a flashier West Coast.

Desert Island Books

A while ago I was challenged to write a blog on another platform - the five books I'd take to a desert island. In the time allocated I wrote My Five Favourite Books and I was quite pleased with the result. Throw in Scrabble and a literate Fred the crab and I'd be set for, well, days.