Stephen L. Carter novels have always seemed to me, based on my idiosyncratic method of sourcing reading, to be those general fiction novels that masquerade as ‘proper’ thrillers but lack that genre’s tension. So I’ve never read any. But his fourth, Jericho’s Fall, has garnered so many fine blurbs (I know, I know, blurbs are [...]
Elmore Leonard, one of crime fiction’s icons, continues to pump out kinetic, character-based thrillers. Age doesn’t seem to dim his uncanny dialogue skills or his ability to move the reader in and out of scenes at will. Not a word is ever wasted. All well and fine but are his recent books as exciting and [...]
With rare time on my hands, I strolled through the shelves of Reader’s Feast yesterday and chanced upon: Dan Fesperman is a thriller writer I’ve avoided until now but his latest, The Arms Maker of Berlin, seems to be gathering plenty of comparisons to John Le Carre John Keane’s The Life and Death of Democracy [...]
Also posted in Nonfiction |
Viewed a few days ago: The third one in the series, Red Riding: 1983, is a corker, coming with a virtuoso plot knitting together the first two. In some ways darker than the first two, with its main protagonist one of the corrupt West Yorkshire policemen, it nonetheless offers a ray of sunshine at the [...]
The Hieronymus Bosch mysteries by Michael Connelly were among my favourites, and they deservedly crowned Connelly as one of the kings of the genre. Over the last few years, his books have seemed no less capable but have, to my mind, lacked fervour. So I was pleased to grab The Scarecrow, a sequel to 1996’s The Poet, [...]
Yes, I must confess to laziness. Despite revering Pynchon’s epic novels from past decades, I haven’t kept up with him. Twelve years ago I bought Mason & Dixon – it languishes on a bookshelf. Three years ago I almost obtained Against the Day . . . but did not. Laura Miller, one of the most [...]
Also posted in Literary Fiction |
Nearly all fiction this month but a good mix of genres: Michael Connelly’s The Scarecrow, a sequel to The Poet Home by Marilynne Robinson – my second The Women by T. Coraghessan Boyle – I have been waiting for this for so long Elmore Leonard’s Road Dogs – my first for a few years Amos [...]
A complete contrast: Red Riding: 1980, the second of the three and directed by James Marsh, is even more baroque and savage than Red Riding: 1974, with wonderful bleak scenery matched to a great score. Paddy Considine stars brilliantly. 4 stars. A charity screening of Blessed by Ana Kokkinos (Head On, The Book of Revelation) [...]
T. Jefferson Parker is a superb stylist within a certain category of crime fiction writers – too lyrical to be noir, too place-oriented to fit into the lean Connelly oeuvre, yet pared down compared to the Rankins of the world. To a reader of many, many mysteries, Parker surprises with his prose on every page, [...]
Complete contrasts: Sergio, Greg Barker’s documentary on Sergio De Mello, the high-profile UN envoy who died in a Iraqi suicide bombing in 2003, is a work of consummate filmmaking. The close-up interviews of the participants who tried to save Sergio’s life (as the movie points out, this man was always known by his first man) [...]
Also posted in Film, Genocide |