Lazy Sunday Service

I completely forgot that Patti Abbott was running her Drabble Challenge yesterday.  The idea was to write a drabble based on one of three photos.  As usual, I posted my Saturday drabble but it had nothing to do with the three pictures.  C'est la vie.  There are 21 drabbles over at Patti's blog.  Check them out.


My posts this week

Review of The Black House by Peter May
Review of The Pistol Poets by Victor Gischler
Aberystwyth haul
Review of The Last Detective by Peter Lovesey
Karma Coma

Karma Coma

‘How are you, George?’

His skin was paper thin, tight to his bones, eyes buried deep in their sockets. 

‘You’re still in pain?’

He tried to nod his head. 

‘Do you want me to make it go away?’

He blinked, thinking that he hated rhetorical questions.  Hated this damn hospital.  Hated the cancer that had put him here. 

She produced a syringe.  ‘Morphine.  It’ll make it all disappear.’

He watched her roll up his sleeve, the needle being fed into a vein, wondering about the use of ‘all’.

‘The pain will drift away, then a moment of karma, then ...’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words

Review of The Last Detective by Peter Lovesey (Time Warner, 1990)

A young woman is found floating naked in a lake, with no obvious signs as to how she was killed.  She seems vaguely familiar to many people but it takes a little while for her to be  identified.  Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond has been assigned to the case.  Diamond believes in old fashioned policing using clues and deduction, not overly relying on forensic evidence and fitting the facts around it.  He has a spiky, dominant personality and his staff live in fear of his wrath.  He’s also awaiting the report of an investigation into his conduct related to a miscarriage of justice case, and his usual DI has been replaced by a plant from head office to keep an eye on him.  As the case unfolds, Diamond feels he is pushing a lonely furrow, his team more interested in seeking a conviction rather than the truth.

The Last Detective is a police procedural in the traditional, British form - think Colin Dexter, John Harvey or Ian Rankin.  Lovesey tries to break the form up by varying the point of view, the book divided into parts, with each told from the perspective of a different character.  It’s a useful device to add some depth to what is a fairly mundane story.  The characterisation is good, although it’s difficult to warm to Diamond until near the end of the book and at that point his personality seems to have been transformed.  There is a good sense of place, the story clearly rooted in Bath and its surrounds, and there is nice contextualisation with respect to Jane Austen’s link to the city.  The plot works fine, having a couple of twists and turns, some misdirection, and good procedural detail with respect to the case and a trial, but ultimately, the book hinges on two events that both seemed weak to me.  Difficult to discuss without giving spoilers, but the dramatic change in Diamond’s life was needed as a plot device but didn’t ring true, and the resolution is based on a confession that comes very easily and seemed very unlikely.  Overall, an okay, straight up-and-down police procedural.

Aberystwyth haul

I have finally managed to buy a Reginald Hill book.  It took nine bookshops, but I got there in the end.  The book I've bought is Midnight Fugue, a Dalziel and Pascoe book.  Although I've read a Reginald Hill book before then, it's not been in this series, so I'm looking forward to it.  I also picked up Deon Meyer, 13 Hours; Colin Coterill, Love Songs from a Shallow Grave; Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers; John Lawton, A Lily in the Field; and Sarah Helm, A Life in Secrets.  A nice little haul.

Review of The Pistol Poets by Victor Gischler (No Exit Press, 2004)

Wandering professor, Jay Morgan, has landed at East Oklahoma University to teach poetry on a one year contract.  Beyond the fact that his students have a distinct lack of talent, within a week of term starting he has major problem - there’s a dead co-ed in his bed, the victim of a dodgy drug overdose, and an overly keen student journalist is tailing him.  A potential benefactor to the university and aspiring poet comes to his rescue, helping him dispose of the body and cover his tracks.  He has two further problems, however.  First, the young woman’s parents have sent low life PI, Deke Stubbs, to find out what happened to her.  Second, St Louis drug lieutenant, Harold Jenks, has decided to try and go straight, well kind-of.  He’s stolen the identity of a kid who has a scholarship to EOU, skipping town with a hundred thousand dollars worth of cocaine, hoping that stolen rap lyrics and hallmark card greetings will be enough to edge him through Morgan’s poetry class.  In his wake he has left a very pissed off drug lord.  With the convergence of Jenks, Stubbs, Morgan’s slightly mad colleagues, and a St Louis gang, all hell is about to break loose.

The Pistol Poets is a screwball noir with a healthy dose of mayhem and madness.  As with all books in this sub-genre, plausibility is thin on the ground, but that’s hardly the point.  Instead, the plot skates the edges of credibility with a series of twists and turns, double-crosses, dead ends, and violent clashes, acted out with a weird and wonderful set of characters who are all slightly larger than life or are kooky in some way.  Moreover, the book is written in nice, tight, expressive prose, with a plot that is well choreographed.  I was hooked from pretty much the first page and they then flipped over at a steady pace.  It would have been quite easy for the various intersecting subplots to drift away into a bit of a mess, but Gischler has a firm hand on the tiller and keeps the whole thing together until the last page.  A very enjoyable bit of escapist noir.

Review of The Black House by Peter May (Quercus, 2011)

Detective Inspector Fin Macleod grew up in a remote village on the Isle of Lewis, escaping the cloying, conservative society to Glasgow University when he was 18.  Within a year he had dropped out and joined the police.  Seventeen years later and his life is in a rut.  His marriage is on the rocks and his eight year old son has recently been killed in a hit and run incident.  On the verge of leaving the police he is sent back to Lewis to help in the murder investigation of one of his former class mates, killed in the same way as a victim in one of his open cases in Edinburgh.  Neither Macleod or the DCI in charge of the case wants him there.  As MacLeod starts to investigate he uncovers old memories and encounters ghosts from his past.  As the case unfolds, it twists in a sinister fashion, Macleod becoming ever more uncomfortable as his past catches up with him. 

The Black House is written in expressive prose that’s very easy on the eye.  The sense of place, the characterization, and the close community relations are very well done, placing the reader into the landscape and society of Lewis.  The telling alternates between the present, told in the third person, and flash backs to Macleod’s childhood, told in the present tense.  It’s a plot device that works well, providing vital contextual back story.  Unfortunately, it is also over elaborated and it would have been possible to trim much of it back in length without losing any important material.  Certainly 50 plus pages could be edited from the book without the story suffering in any great way.  The other main issue is the telegraphing of the mystery element of the plot.  By a third of the way through I’d worked out who the killer was and roughly why; I was holding out for a major plot twist, but although a twist did come it was one that confirmed my deduction rather than challenged it.  All in all, a nicely written book that provides an interesting tale with a strong sense of place and community, but is overly long and has a weak plot with respect to the murder investigation though not Macleod’s personal history.

Lazy Sunday Service

I've been trying to buy a Reginald Hill book to read for the celebration of his life that's taking place this month.  So far I've been to six bookshops and not found a single copy of any of his books, which has been a surprise.  I'm off to Aberystwyth on Tuesday, assuming I can get through the floods (right), to do my external examining gig, and will take a scout round the bookshops there.  If I've no joy there, then I'll have to resort to some online shopping.  Other than that, it's been business as usual this last week.  I did a TV interview for Danish television on Thursday.  One of the Irish banks is owned by Danske Bank and they've been burned by the Irish property market.  I've also posted on that a couple of times this week (see below).


My posts this week
According the CIF we need to add supply to our oversupply (do we really need more houses?)
May reviews
A couple of interviews
Review of Resistance by Matthew Cobb
Demographic contraction in Ireland's house buying cohort
Review of Kingdom of Shadows by Alan Furst
Nothing under the mattress
If this is the standard of banking analysis no wonder we're in trouble

Nothing under the mattress

The chair toppled backwards, the old man’s head bouncing off the ground with a sickening thump.

A gloved hand grabbed his brother’s throat.

‘Where’s the money?’

‘What money?’  His voice was weak, his body shaking uncontrollably. 

‘Your savings!  Your stash of cash.’ The robber’s face was hot beneath the balaclava.  ‘Tell me where
the money is or I swear to god I’ll kill you both!’

‘The bank.  I told you before, our money’s in the bank.’

A second man, holding a knife, entered the room.  ‘Nothing.’

‘He’s lying.’ A vicious punch snapped the man’s head back.  ‘Where’s the fucking cash!’




A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Kingdom of Shadows by Alan Furst (Victor Gollancz, 2000)

March 1938 and former Hungarian cavalry officer, Nicholas Morath, travels Europe from his Paris base performing duties for his uncle, the diplomat, Count Polanyi.  Polanyi trades information, favours and conspiracy with the intelligence agencies and rogue agents of various countries as he tries to steer Hungary away from the clutches of the fascist Arrow Cross party and Nazi influence.  Morath drifts through the shadows, carrying information, aiding people cross borders, funding political activity, encouraging and cajoling reluctant patriots, and trading intelligence, traipsing between Paris, Antwerp, Vienna, Budapest, Romania, Ruthenia, Slovakia and Sudeten mountains for clandestine meetings.  It is clear the war is coming and the pressure is starting to build as Morath tries to ease political tensions, persuade his mother and sister to leave Hungary, maintain his relationship with Argentinian mistress, Cara, and keep his advertising business ticking over.

Furst’s novels are multi-layered, atmospheric affairs, full of crafted prose and understated plotlines.  Kingdom of Shadows is no different.  An awful lot happens in what is a normal length novel, as Morath criss-crosses Europe sliding in and out of various scrapes, and yet the pace seems leisurely and evocative.  Furst is very good at setting a scene, placing the reader into a landscape, and in providing in an economical fashion the contextual politics both locally and at a European scale.  In this sense, the reader comes to understand the fully geopolitical complexity of what was going on, without it swamping the narrative.  That takes some skill and yet Furst makes it look effortless.  As with his other novels, various strands are left somewhat ambiguous, a snapshot of one set of social relations at a particular place and time.  My only critique is sometimes the storytelling is a little too understated, especially when something truly dramatic is taking place (being shot at and chased has the same tone and feel as meeting a girlfriend), and there is a little too much ambiguity at times.  But when all said and done, Furst has a distinctive voice and its always a pleasure to read one of his books.

Review of Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis by Matthew Cobb (Pocket Books, 2009)

In Resistance, Matthew Cobb provides a broad social and political history of the French resistance movement in France during the Second World War, drawing on extensive archival and interview research.  What his analysis demonstrates is that the Resistance was, in fact, many resistances, made up of hundreds of groups and cells working in broad alliances, cross-cut with deep political schisms, clashes of personalities, differences in opinion, tactics and strategies, and answering to different masters.  A real strength of the book is that Cobb manages to, on the one hand, contextualise resistance within wider European and global politics and the war, and within what was happening in France with respect to the Vichy regime and the apparatus of Nazi oppression, and on the other, to provide in-depth discussion of particular individuals and groups, and their motivations, aspirations, actions and fate.  As such, he provides by both breadth and depth, dispassionate contextualisation and poignant intimacy.  It’s a powerful combination that leads to a huge amount of information being crammed into a relatively short book without it ever feeling rushed or truncated.  In addition, rather than simply describing events as with many historical texts, Cobb provides an explanatory framework, seeking to interpret why certain decisions were undertaken, and he does so from a relatively neutral position, detailing how others have interpreted the same events and why his view concurs or differs.  In my view, it’s an excellent piece of work, covering a huge amount of ground in a lively, engaging and informative voice.  If you want a rounded, synoptic introduction to the various Resistance movements in France, this is a great place to start.

A couple of interviews

I've two book reviews to put up in the next couple of days.  I'm still working on drafting them, so in the meantime here are links to two interviews that were published in the last couple of days concerning Killer Reels.

An origins piece on Crime Always Pays
A short, sharp interview on You Would Say That, Wouldn't You

May reviews

A fairly varied month of reading, in terms of the styles, places and how I rated the books.  My book of the month is Joe Lansdale's Edge of Dark Water, a porch-told, coming of age yarn set in East Texas in the 1930s.  Edge of your seat stuff.

Ghost Town by Michael Clifford ****.5
The Shark Infested Custard by Charles Willeford ***
Edge of Dark Water by Joe R Lansdale *****
Killed at the Whim of a Hat by Colin Cotterill **
Buried Strangers by Leighton Gage ***
Lumen by Ben Pastor ***.5
Snapshots by Paul Brazill ****
The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson ****.5
Dead Harvest by Chris F Holm ****

Lazy Sunday Service

I was asked this week whether I could write a character drive story about a monster with whom the reader can sympathise.  The two main ways to do this, I think, is to make the story about redemption or vengeance.  Weighing up which way to go, or maybe there's a third way ...?


My posts this week:
Census 2011: Age profiles
This book was written by someone else, wasn't it
1991-2011: One and a half housing units built for each new household
Review of Ghost Town by Michael Clifford
Spinetingler piece
Review of The Shark Infested Custard by Charles Willeford


Can you smell smoke?
According to the CIF we need to add supply to our oversupply (do we really need more houses?)

Can you smell smoke?

Sniff.

‘Can you smell that?’

‘What?’ 

‘Smoke.’  Sniff.

‘Probably next door burning rubbish again.’

‘Oh, god!  I’ve got washing out.’  She dashes from the room.  ‘Pete!’

‘What?’

‘Pete!  The kids!’

He bolts for the door, black smoke twisting along the ceiling.

Flames are dancing in the kitchen, stretching out into the hall and up the stairs.

He hurtles past her, disappearing into the charcoal fog.

‘Pete!  Sarah!  Liam!’

The banister catches fire.

‘Mummy!’

‘Liam!’

Pete re-emerges, coughing, carrying a small boy.  ‘Get out!’

He turns back to the stairs. 

‘Daddy!’

He takes a deep breath, then dashes into the flames.



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of The Shark Infested Custard by Charles Willeford

Four guys in their late twenties/early thirties live in a singles apartment block in Miami.  Larry ‘Fuzz-O’ Dolman is an ex-cop who now works for a private security company.  Eddie Miller is an airline pilot who’s studying for a real estate license.  Don Luchessi is a salesman, separated from his wife, but pining for the company of his ten year old daughter.  Hank Norton is a smooth talking drug company rep who claims to be able to pick up a woman in any locale.  They spend their free time hanging by the pool, playing cards, going to the movies and trying to chat up women.  When Hank bets the others that he can pick up a woman from what they agree is an impossible scoring location - a drive-in movie theatre - he sets in train a whole series of events, starting with trying to dispose of two bodies.  All four guys love Miami, but can they take the heat?

The Shark Infested Custard is told in four parts, each part told in the first person from the perspective of one of the four lead characters.  Willeford manages to produce four different voices and to provide a nice depth of characterization.  The dialogue is spot-on, and the scenes are well penned, some of them very well so.  There are some very nice observational touches throughout, especially Hank’s amateur psychology readings of other people, although this is tempered by some fairly explicit sexism and some political incorrectness around race.  For me, it was the plot that was the weakest element of the book.  Each part is an extended short story, with each intersecting with the others.  In some places, the story didn’t really seem to be moving anywhere other than building the character.  There just seemed to be little forward momentum and if I’d lost the book, I wouldn’t have felt compelled to buy another to find out how the book ended.  And collectively the four parts didn’t seem to be adding up to more than the sum of the parts.  That is, until the last few pages.  Often novels seem to tail off at the end, whereas this one finished with a flurry that had the effect of lifting the whole book.  Indeed, it is interesting that a day or so after finishing it, my opinion of its merits is much higher than when I was actually reading it.  Overall, an uneven story that has some flashes of brilliance.