To The Last Page

Although there have been translations of some of his work, it seems to me that the English speaking world haven’t really caught on to the genius of David B, one of the greats of the European graphic novel scene. It took 10 years for the artist/writer’s 1996 masterpiece L’Ascension du Haut Mal to be published in English as Epileptic , and since then only a few of his works have been translated and independently published in the UK or USA. Actually, I think the English speaking world have been deprived of the opportunity to read a great number of original talents in the European market, but that’s something that Europe Comics are starting to quickly rectify with their eBook English translations, and finally, we’ve now have another marvellous little gem from David B. Originally published in France in 2001 for Dupuis, Reading the Ruins ( La Lecture des ruines ) is a good choice for an audience unfamiliar with his work or style, even if it isn’t typical of it. In full colour rather than h...

You expect a thriller to operate on a number of levels, the surface actions of a murder plot hiding deeper motivations, secret desires and hidden pasts. JP Delaney’s Believe Me certainly plays with those levels like any good thriller should, but there’s something else here that you sense is just a little bit more complicated, where the idea of truth and reality is a little more blurred, and the consequences potentially even more dangerous for it. One of the things that makes it difficult to determine real emotions and behaviours from faked one is the fact that Claire is an actress; a good one. Unfortunately she doesn’t have a Green Card, but she is determined to make the most of her time in New York by attending one of the best acting schools in the city. The only actress work that Claire can get is for a private detective who needs an attractive woman who is also a good actress to ‘test’ men whose wives believe they are being unfaithful by suggesting she is available and getting them...

**WARNING** There are no spoilers below, but perhaps a little more detail about the plot that you might not want to know, although really not much more than is evident from the opening chapter. The question you ask yourself when you read a Linwood Barclay novel, and the reason you keep reading through his books, is how is he going to pull off some amazing twist? You know that you’ve only been fed one superficial reading of the thriller that sounds plausible enough, but there’s enough strange behaviour and unexplained events to assure you that there is a lot more to be uncovered. The only concern you might have would be whether the twist is going to work, and there is only one way to find out when you read a Linwood Barclay novel and that is to keep reading through to the end. If you’re a fan or have read any of his books before, you know that credibility is unlikely to be a serious issue with this particular author. Barclay’s novels might have more twists than a shopful of curly-wurlys...

Anthony Ferner's intense little novella is somewhat domestic in nature, exploring the deep feelings that run between a married couple. Those feelings are mostly hate and contempt, which might make Inside the Bone Box sound like an unpleasant but common experience, but Ferner's vivid writing and insightful ability to get 'inside the bone box', explores the deeper sentiments that lie behind the ruins of Nick and Alyson's marriage. Nick and Alyson might hate each other, but there's reason to believe that they hate themselves even more. Nick Anderton is an eminent and well-respected neurosurgeon, but he is grossly overweight and aware that his health problems could start to have an impact on his ability to handle the delicate nature of his work and potentially lead to mistakes in the operating theatre. And indeed there already have been mistakes and indications that he could lose his position at the hospital and his licence to operate unless he takes steps to resol...

The concept is promising and a little bit different for a horror novel. Deviating away from the familiar locations of a remote house in the woods, a gothic mansion or even from the satire of suburban life, Mats Strandberg offers up a cruise ship as a place of mass slaughter on the high seas. Clearly with a background of having served time as an employee on such a transport, it’s no surprise that Strandberg presents a more varied cast of, dare I say it, unlikeable victims that he is willing to put through sheer terror and bloody horrible death. There’s a bit of a disaster movie there in Blood Cruise as well as the horror and it’s not without some social satire either. The Baltic Charisma is indeed not exactly your regular luxury cruise ship. In reality it’s a booze cruise on a one-day stopover between Sweden and Finland, attracting all sorts of misfits. There are the good-time party animals and the stag parties, alcoholics, dysfunctional families and lonely aging singles looking desper...

Comedy is a very subjective thing. I’ve never read David Sedaris before, but I’m assured by Jonathan Ross that he is “the funniest writer alive today”, the Guardian think he’s “brilliantly clever, inventive and funny”, and the Spectator call him “one of the biggest comedy writers of his generation”. If you don’t trust back-cover blurb endorsements, well the evidence is there that Sedaris has a huge following for his books and his appearances on the literary circuit. Me? Well, I don’t think my quote of “Meh’ will feature on the back of the next book. On the other hand, that was merely my initial reaction to Calypso , perhaps expecting a little too much from all these high claims about David Sedaris as a comedy genius. By the time I’d finished the book, finding myself drawn in and getting through the book surprisingly quickly, I had warmed to his style a little more. Still not a ringing endorsement, I know, so maybe it’s worth looking a little more closely and seeing if we can come up wi...