Posts

Cool Machine - Colson Whitehead

Image
Cool Machine is the third book in Colson Whitehead's Harlem trilogy, a series that in its second installment was already shaping up to have as important a place in the author's depiction of the experience of the black community in America as his other Pulitzer Prize winning works. Perhaps even more so for the manner in which it extends that vision across the decades of the 60s in Harlem Shuffle and the 70s in Crook Manifesto . through to the 80s now in Cool Machine . The central figure who is witness to the changes and challenges that the years bring is principally Ray Carney in his efforts to become a legitimate businessman selling furniture in his own Harlem store despite the tug of the criminal underworld coming to his door seeking his services as a fence for stolen goods. It's not just underworld connections that Ray has to navigate his way though, some of them genuine friends that he is helping give a leg up through the challenges of trying to survive as a black pers...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mathilde a disparu - Leno Solveig

Image
The directness of the title ('Mathilde has disappeared' or 'Mathilde is missing') is reflected in the style of the opening chapters of Leno Solveig's Mathilde a disparu , even in the chapter titles which lay out which person's testimony we are getting, the time and the place. Everything is clearly outlined. Apart from the opening chapter ' Fin de l'histoire ', which sets up the conclusion (see what I mean?), the narrative in the main takes a direct procedural approach of the 26-year-old Mathilde being reported missing and the police investigation as it interviews friends, family and co-workers trying to find out what has happened to the young woman. The frantic phone call to the police station in Carvin (north France) comes from Mathilde's worried parents, and as brigadier-chef Rémy interviews the young woman's neighbours, work colleagues and former boyfriend Théo, it quickly becomes apparent that there is indeed good reason for concern. Abdu...
Post a Comment
Read more

À bout de souffle - Alex Sol

Image
I have to say I was surprised that Alex Sol chose to follow up the epic disappearance-on-a-subway-train mystery of her first Les enquêtes d'Elise Duromain et Lucas Lievens thriller À la vue de tous with the mystery of another disappearance on a moving train. There's no Lucas Lievens this time and Police Commissioner Élise Duromain is actually off-duty when she is witness to what appears to be a live abduction on the train she is on travelling back to Paris. She is even actually sitting in the seat in front of the lady Barbara, who is distraught when her 6 year-old son Gabriel disappears within a matter of minutes while she looked for an unoccupied toilet. No, you think, it can't be another case like the last one, and even Duromain tries to convince herself, but it does sound more like a case of trying to convince the reader that this one is different. While it might be related to an extent in terms of the author having another thought or variation on a theme, as the case d...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blacksad - Juan Díaz Canales, Juanjo Guarnido

Image
There is a lot of anthropomorphism in the world of cartoons and comics, and it's a style we are familiar with now from Disney and Pixar movies. That's not surprising, as Jim Steranko notes in the introduction, since long before Disney there has been a tendency to associate humans with animals behaviours and characteristics. It seems less of a cliché or shortcut then than natural for a comic like Blacksad to lean on those stereotypical characteristics, a silverback gorilla as a bodyguard, a lithe lizard as a silent cold blooded assassin. You're going to find weasels and rats in the expected places too. In Blacksad it seems natural also that a private Investigator who snoops around and has lightning reflexes is portrayed as a cat. A pretty tough cat in a trenchcoat. That's because Blacksad - initially at least  - is set in the 1950s period also draws heavily in its style from classic detective cinematic noir. Not so much in the artwork of Juanjo Guarnido, which is less ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Vale of Tears - David Mark

Image
We've arrived at book three-of-three in David Mark’s Sal Delaney series and there is one issue that surely every reader is eagerly looking to see resolved in Vale of Tears . Not will Wulf Hagman finally have his name cleared and his reputation restored in the realm of public opinion; not will Sal patch things up with her former lover who is still recovering from injury but maybe not recovered from his fling with Magda Quinn; not will we find out where Sal's twin brother Jarod has disappeared to and why; not even what is the story and his connection with Dagmara, who appears to be back to her old tricks as trailed at the end of book two ( Don't Say a Word ). Well, we expect answers to all those questions obviously, but paramount for me at least is will Magda Quinn get her comeuppance? So there are a few things to tie up, and obviously the concluding episode in a trilogy is not a good place to start reading the series - so reading a review of it makes even less sense - but an...
Post a Comment
Read more

La Nena - Carmen Mola

Image
Having read the first two Inspectora Elena Blanco novels by Carmen Mola, I knew to expect to be prepared for some dark scenes of horrific crime, but the authors (Mola a pseudonym used by a collaborative team of three male authors - Jorge Díaz, Agustín Martínez and Antonio Mercero) still manage to shock with the extreme violence and twisted actions that take place early in the first few chapters of La Nena ('The Kid'). Without wanting to get too deeply into it, the prologue ends with a horrific scene involving a newly married woman entering a family that raise pigs to discover that some of the family members appear to be closely related to the animals, but it doesn't take long into the novel proper for another even more shocking event to surpass it. And it's a very surprising one at that. That's because the victim is someone readers of the series will already know. Chesca is one of Elena Blanco’s specialist murder investigation BAC team (Brigada de Análysis de Caso...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives - Elizabeth Arnott

Image
It's a great title for a thriller, but The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives promises more than it delivers. The impact on families of convicted killers is something not often considered and for which there is little in the way of help or support. Certainly not in the 1960s, which is the setting of Elizabeth Arnott's novel. How do you survive being the wife of a convicted serial killer? Beverley Lightfoot, wife of serial killer Henry James Lightfoot, who murdered seven women in the Bay Area of California between 1957 and 1963, feels a certain amount of guilt for not questioning her husband's suspicious behaviours. She takes little comfort from a small group of other women with similar experiences, and relating her experience in public events doesn't really seem to be enough. Her friend Margot, whose husband was a prominent politician and also a serial killer however tells her " We can't keep bad people from doing bad things ". Or can they? Beverley, Ma...
Post a Comment
Read more