Monthly Archives: December 2011

2011: The Challenges

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I managed to finish six of the seven reading challenges I signed up for at the beginning of the year. The Aussie Authors Challenge, the Global Reading Challenge the Historical Fiction Challenge, the Ireland Reading Challenge, the Nordic Book Challenge and the What’s in a Name challenge have all added diversity and, for the most part, enjoyment to my reading. I even completed my Good Reads challenge to read 175 books this year.

2011 Reading Challenge

2011 Reading Challenge
Bernadette has completed her goal of reading 175 books in 2011!
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The challenge that has defeated me is the Eastern European Challenge. I aimed to read a paltry-seeming 4 books but have completed only 3 books which qualify. I feel I must point out (as though the gods of Reading Challenges award points for effort) that my failure is not for want of trying. My house is littered with the carcasses of half-read Eastern European books that have dropped to the floor as I slipped into yet another coma induced by yet another 27 paragraph description of winter. It reminded me of the horrors of my first year at University where I came to the realisation that my planned-for future as an English teacher would never eventuate because I knew with certainty that I would go mad if I had to read one more word by ‘another bloody Russian’. There is something about the style prevalent in Eastern European writing that my brain struggles to process and at my ripe old age (44) I have finally learned that there are battles not worth fighting. I do actually have two more books here that I had planned to try for the challenge during my post Christmas break but it is the end of a difficult year, the first heatwave of summer has begun and I am weary. I am not at all in the mood for things dense or difficult and so admit defeat. The fault is all mine Amy, thanks for hosting the challenge anyway.

Next year doesn’t look like being any easier in my non-reading life so I’ve radically reduced my reading challenges to one: the Australian Women Writers challenge. I hope still to have diversity in my reading but I’m not going to turn the pursuit of that goal into a second job. Life is challenging enough on its own sometimes :)

2011 End of Year Book Meme

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I noticed this meme at Jen’s Book Thoughts a couple of weeks ago and thought it looked like fun and also a little familiar. Turns out I did it last year too. Wish my brain didn’t resemble Swiss cheese quite so closely.

1. Best Book of 2011 – Catherine O’Flynn’s WHAT WAS LOST. I am besotted by this book and its characters. I listened to it the first time around then bought myself a print copy and read that and then listened to the book again. Each time I read it I get something new out of it. It is ostensibly about a young girl who goes missing in the 1980′s but it’s really about much more than that. It’s about loss and the myriad ways people deal (or fail to deal) with it, the absurdness of life (and death) and how truly stupendously awful shopping malls are. It’s sad and funny and beautiful. Did I mention I am besotted?

2. Worst Book of 2011 – I had a fair few DNFs this year (mostly while trying to find something readable for the Eastern European challenge) but the worst book I actually finished was Robert Harris’ THE FEAR INDEX which was full of research on display and silly stereotypes. It was also as exciting as carpet.

3. Most Disappointing Book - Ben Elton’s MELTDOWN. Not only was it not funny but it made me question if Elton had ever been funny or if my laughter at his earlier books could be ascribed to that joint I smoked during University O-week in 1985 (it’s OK mum I didn’t inhale).

4. Most surprising (in a good way) book - I expected nothing from Y.A. Erskine’s THE BROTHERHOOD because I knew absolutely nothing about it when I opened the front cover and started reading (I had picked it up in a bookstore purely because it had a little Australian sticker on it). The novel completely blew me away and if I wasn’t quite so besotted with the people in WHAT WAS LOST this would have been my book of the year. It’s got everything – great structure, great characters, surprises and a really thoughtful exploration of important issues like police resourcing and institutionalised racism. But it’s a ripping yarn above all else.

5. Book you recommended to people most - Well WHAT WAS LOST came out a few years ago so more people have already read it but THE BROTHERHOOD was new this year so I’ve banged on about it quite a bit. I’m recommending it to all and sundry for the Australian Women Writers 2012 Challenge too. I’m on kind of a crusade.

6. Best series you discovered - So hard to choose just one. So I won’t.

  • Leighton Gage’s series set in Brazil featuring Chief Inspector Mario Silva is amazing. I read the first two books in the series BLOOD OF THE WICKED and BURIED STRANGERS in 2011 and plan to read the rest as soon as possible.
  • I only read one of Ernesto Mallo’s series set in 1970′s Argentina, NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK, but boy what a first book! I have the second one, SWEET MONEY, lined up for January
  • Domingo Villar’s books about police inspector Leo Caldas operating in Vigo, Spain make for scrumptious reading. I read two of these starting with WATER-BLUE EYES then DEATH ON A GALICIAN SHORE

7. Favourite new authors you discovered - As I mentioned in an earlier post I read 83 books by new to me authors this year so listing favourites is a bit hard and it normally does take a couple of books for me to add an author to my favourites list. But, apart from the authors I’ve mentioned in other answers, I think Jussi Adler-Olsen, Christopher Brookmyre, Alan Carter, Shamini Flint, Tom Franklin, Alan Glynn, Geoffrey McGeachin and Angela Savage might have what it takes to become must-read authors for me.

8. Most hilarious read - I’ve taken to the comic noir novel of late and in that vein very much enjoyed Eoin Colfer’s PLUGGED and Helen Fitzgerald’s THE DONOR. But my most hilarious read was undoubtedly Christopher Brookmyre’s PANDAEMONIUM. It made me snort lemonade out of my nose.

9. Most thrilling, unputdownable book - I had a few dud thriller’s this year but Michael Robotham’s THE WRECKAGE was a genuinely intelligent and topical thriller.

10. Book you most anticipated - I try not to get excited about particular books as I don’t like to set unreasonable expectations but I must admit I was very much looking forward to Elly Griffiths THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END which, happily, was very good (and yes on my copy of the book the title is missing the apostrophe).

11. Favorite cover of a book you read - I adore the covers of Sulari Gentill’s series because they are both evocative of the stories contained within the books and they do not contain any of the stereotypes used on half the other books I read (no running silhouettes or statues of angels here). 2011′s instalment was A DECLINE IN PROPHETS: the cover and the book inside it were both excellent

12. Most memorable character - In some ways it’s Kate Meaney, the young girl who went missing in WHAT WAS LOST as she occasionally haunts my dreams but overall I think it’s Dr Jennifer White from Alice LaPlante’s TURN OF MIND. She has been diagnosed with dementia and although the book is on one level a story about determining whether or not she committed a crime she cannot remember on a different level it is simply her story about living with the hideousness that is Alzheimer’s disease. She’ll stick with me for a long time to come

13. Most beautifully written book - Aside from WHAT WAS LOST (I told you I am besotted) I think it’s a toss up between two books. The first is Johan Theorin’s THE QUARRY where the reader is drawn into the the insular world of the island setting and its slow awakening from a harsh winter to spring. Kudos must also go to Marlaine Delargy who translated the novel from its original Swedish and retained not only the story but the beauty as well. The other book is Tom Franklin’s CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER which was equally atmospheric, this time about the American south.

14. Book that had the greatest impact on you – do you need to ask? I am besotted I tell you.

15. Book you can’t believe you waited until 2011 to finally read? I didn’t read a lot of older books this year so I’ll kind of add to last year’s answer. I wish I’d discovered the Swedish Martin Beck series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö much earlier but I am enjoying reading them now. I read the second book in the series, 1966′s THE MAN WHO WENT UP IN SMOKE, this year and will ration the remaining 8 books in the series over the next few years. The good thing about having waited this long is that the books were re-issued a few years ago with introductions written by modern crime writers. In this instalment it was Val McDermid who wrote about travelling to America for cheap books (this brought back memories for me) and being influenced by these two great authors.

Feel free to join in the meme or leave your answers to any or all of these in the comments

2011: The Australian Authors

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I read 38 books by Australian authors this year, up from 20 last year and increasing the percentage of my reading that is by Aussie authors which I’m happy with.

At Fair Dinkum Crime, the blog I co-host with a fellow crime fiction fan, we recently each listed our 5 most impressive Australian titles that we read this year and I really struggled to narrow down my choices. In case you don’t click the link to find out what mine were I’ll repeat here that Y.A Erskine’s The Brotherhood was my most impressive Aussie book read during the year. It’s an absolutely outstanding novel, especially when you consider it is a debut and I hope we see many more books from Yvette Erskine. The book will definitely be popping up again in my favourite books of the year list.

Here’s my full list, roughly in the order I read them. I’ve used a code to help you incorporate some of these into your reading challenges next year if you are so inclined

  • (F) indicates books by Australian women writers
  • (Oz) is for books set here (or where the bulk of the action takes place here)
  • (HF) indicates historical fiction novels

Even if you’re not into reading challenges I do hope you have an opportunity to read some of these fine Australian books (some of which aren’t even crime fiction!)

  1. Kathryn Fox – Death Mask (pub 2010, 4.5 stars) (F) 
  2. Andrew Croome – Document Z (pub 2009, 4 stars)  (Oz) (HF – 1950′s)
  3. Katherine Howell – Cold Justice (pub 2010, 4.5 stars) (F)  (Oz)
  4. David Whish-Wilson – Line of Sight (pub 2010, 4 stars)  (Oz) (HF – 1970′s)
  5. Adrian d’Hage – The Maya Codex (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  6. Michael Duffy – The Tower (pub 2009, 3.5 stars)  (Oz)
  7. Lenny Bartulin – The Black Russian (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)  (Oz)
  8. Geraldine Brooks – Caleb’s Crossing (pub 2011, 4.5 stars) (F) (HF – 1600′s)
  9. Michael Robotham – The Wreckage (pub 2011, 4 stars)
  10. Colleen McCullough – Naked Cruelty  (pub 2010, 2 stars) (F) (HF – 1960′s)
  11. David Owen – How the Dead See (pub 2011, 4 stars)  (Oz)
  12. Jaye Ford – Beyond Fear (pub 2011, 3 stars) (F) (Oz)
  13. Katherine Howell – Violent Exposure (pub 2010, 4.5 stars) (F) (Oz)
  14. Sydney Bauer – Matter of Trust (pub 2010, 2.5 stars) (F)
  15. Gary Corby – The Pericles Commission (pub 2011, 3.5 stars) (HF – 400′s)
  16. Sulari Gentill – A Decline in Prophets  (pub 2011, 4 stars)  (Oz) (HF – 1930′s)
  17. Linda Cockburn – Who Killed Dave? (pub 2009, 3 stars) (F)  (Oz)
  18. Alan Carter – Prime Cut (pub 2011 4.5 stars)  (Oz)
  19. Adrian Hyland - Kinglake-350 (pub 2011, 5 stars)  (Oz)  - Non fiction
  20. P.D. Martin – Kiss of Death (pub 2010, 3 stars) (F) 
  21. Kerry Greenwood – Dead Man’s Chest (F)  (Oz) (HF – 1920′s)
  22. Chris Womersley – Bereft (pub 2011, no rating)  (Oz) (HF – 1910′s)
  23. Angela Savage – The Half Child (pub 2010, 4 stars) (F) (HF – 1990′s)
  24. Geoffrey McGeachin – The Diggers Rest Hotel (2010, 4 stars)  (Oz) (HF – 1940′s)
  25. J D Cregan – The Wonder of Seldom Seen (pub 2011, 3.5 stars) (Oz)
  26. Kel Robertson – Rip Off (pub 2011, 4 stars)  (Oz)
  27. Christopher Currie – The Ottoman Motel (pub 2011, 3.5 stars) (Oz)
  28. Helen Fitzgerald – The Donor (pub 2011, 4 stars) (F)
  29. Garry Disher – Whispering Death (pub 2011, 4.5 stars) (Oz)
  30. Nicole Watson – The Boundary (pub 2011, 4 stars) (F) (Oz)
  31. Finola Moorhead – Still Murder  (pub 1991, 3 stars) (F) (Oz)
  32. Barry Maitland – Chelsea Mansions (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  33. Carolyn Morwood – Death and the Spanish Lady (pub 2011, 3.5 stars) (F)  (Oz) (HF 1910′s)
  34. John M Green – Born to Run  (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  35. Y.A. Erskine – The Brotherhood (pub 2011, 5 stars) (F) (Oz)
  36. Kerry Greenwood – Cooking the Books (pub 2011, 3.5 stars) (F) (Oz)
  37. Gary Corby – The Ionia Sanction (pub 2011, 3 stars) (HF – 400′s)
  38. L.A. Larkin – The Genesis Flaw (pub 2010, 2.5 stars) (F) (Oz)

2011: The New Authors

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My final total of books read for 2011 looks like being 178 but even if I do sneak in another one before Saturday midnight my new author tally of 83 books won’t change as I’m definitely in non-challenging, old favourites mode during my holiday week as the temperature hits scorching here.

My percentage of new authors has slipped slightly from last year’s almost dead even (82 of 163 finished books) but I’m happy enough that my ‘new to me author’ percentage is still over 45%. I’d like to maintain that next year though I suspect I might struggle a little as I’ll be doing less challenges (reading challenges are excellent for motivating me to read new authors).

I haven’t quite finished my favourite books of the year list but I fully expect the top two, possibly three, spots to be taken out by books from this list. That’s why I keep reading new authors.

  1. Ellery Adams – A Killer Plot (pub 2010, 3 stars)
  2. Sophie Hannah - Little Face (pub 2006, 1.5 stars)
  3. Camilla Ceder – Frozen Moment (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  4. Leighton Gage – Blood of the Wicked (pub 2008, 4.5 stars)
  5. Kate Ellis – A Perfect Death (pub 2009, 3 stars)
  6. Simon Brett – The Body on the Beach (pub 2000, 3 stars)
  7. Christopher Brookmyre – Pandaemonium (pub 2009, 5 stars)
  8. Alan Glynn – Winterland (pub 2009, 4 stars)
  9. Alan Orloff – Diamonds for the Dead (pub 2010, 3 stars)
  10. Boris Akunin – Pelagia and the White Bulldog (pub 2000, 2 stars)
  11. Dianne Day – The Strange Files of Fremont Jones (pub 1995, 2.5 stars)
  12. Bev Robitai – Murder in the Second Row (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  13. Andrew Croome – Document Z AUS (pub 2009, 4 stars)
  14. Michael Ridpath – Where the Shadows Lie (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  15. David Whish-Wilson – Line of Sight AUS (pub 2010, 4 stars)
  16. Adrian d’Hage – The Maya Codex AUS (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  17. Keigo Higashino – The Devotion of Suspect X (pub 2010, 2 stars)
  18. Charley Warady – 5ive Speed – A Novel (pub 2011, 4 stars)
  19. Christopher Fowler – The Water Room (pub 2008, 3.5 stars)
  20. Jon Loomis – High Season (pub 2007, 3.5 stars)
  21. Sam Eastland – Eye of the Red Tsar (pub 2010, 2.5 stars)
  22. Catherine O’Flynn – What Was Lost (pub 2007, 5 stars )
  23. Helen Grant – The Vanishing of Katharina Linden (pub 2009, 3 stars)
  24. Michael Duffy – The Tower AUS (pub 2009, 3.5 stars)
  25. Nick Brownlee – Bait (pub 2009, 2.5 stars)
  26. Martin Walker – Bruno, Chief of Police (pub 2008, 4 stars)
  27. Lenny Bartulin – The Black RussianAUS (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  28. Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström – Box 21 (pub 2008, 5 stars)
  29. David Owen – How the Dead See AUS (pub 2011, 4 stars)
  30. Michael Van Rooy – An Ordinary Decent Criminal (pub 2005, 3.5 stars)
  31. Jaye Ford – Beyond Fear AUS (pub 2011, 3 stars)
  32. Ernesto Mallo – Needle in a Haystack (pub 2005, 4 stars)
  33. Gary Corby – The Pericles Commission AUS (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  34. Eoin Colfer – Plugged (pub 2011, 4 stars)
  35. Domingo Villar – Water-Blue Eyes (pub 2006, 5 stars)
  36. Linda Cockburn – Who Killed Dave? AUS (pub 2009, 3 stars)
  37. Steve Hamilton – The Lock Artist (pub 2010, 3 stars)
  38. Valerio Varesi – River of Shadows (pub 2010, 3 stars)
  39. Alan Carter – Prime Cut AUS (pub 2011 4.5 stars)
  40. Angela Savage – The Half Child AUS (pub 2010, 4 stars)
  41. Thomas Enger – Burned (pub 2011, 3 stars)
  42. Geoffrey McGeachin – The Diggers Rest Hotel AUS (2010, 4 stars)
  43. J D Cregan – The Wonder of Seldom Seen AUS (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  44. Stan Jones – White Sky, Black Ice (pub 1999, 4.5 stars)
  45. Lars Keplar – The Hypnotist (pub 2010, 2 stars)
  46. Kel Robertson – Rip Off AUS (pub 2011, 4 stars)
  47. Unity Dow – The Screaming of the Innocent (pub 2002, 4.5 stars)
  48. Christopher Currie – The Ottoman Motel AUS (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  49. Arne Dahl – Misterioso (pub 2011, 3 stars)
  50. David McCullough – 1776 (pub 1995, 3 stars)
  51. Gordon W Dale – Fool’s Republic (pub 2011, 3 stars)
  52. Helene Tursten – Detective Inspector Huss (pub 1998, 4.5 stars)
  53. Rosamund Lutpon – Sister (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  54. Gianrico Carofiglio – A Walk in the Dark (pub 2003, 4.5 stars)
  55. Daphne Du Maurier – Rebecca (pub 1938, 3 stars)
  56. Denise Mina – The End of the Wasp Season (pub 2011, 3 stars)
  57. Jussi Adler-Olsen – Mercy (pub 2008, 4.5 stars)
  58. A. D. Miller – Snowdrops (pub 2011, 2 stars)
  59. Tom Franklin – Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (pub 2010, 5 stars)
  60. Nicole Watson – The Boundary AUS (pub 2011, 4 stars)
  61. John Lawton – Second Violin (pub 2008, 3 stars)
  62. Carolyn Morwood – Death and the Spanish Lady AUS (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  63. John M Green – Born to Run AUS (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  64. Kate Charles – Evil Intent (pub 2005, 4.5 stars)
  65. Mari Jungstedt – The Dead of Summer (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  66. Y.A. Erskine – The Brotherhood AUS (pub 2011, 5 stars)
  67. Jane Casey – The Burning (pub 2010, 3.5 stars)
  68. Shamini Flint – A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder (pub 2008, 4 stars)
  69. Sofi Oksanen – Purge (pub 2010, 4 stars)
  70. Barbara Fradkin – This Think of Darkness (pub 2009, rating 2.5)
  71. Megan Abbott – The End of Everything (pub 2011, 3? 3.5 stars? Not sure even now
  72. Jorn Lier Horst – Dregs (pub 2011, 4.5 stars)
  73. Cora Harrison – Scales of Retribution (pub 2011, 3.5 stars)
  74. Carlo Lucarelli – Almost Blue (pub 1997, 3.5 stars)
  75. Rebecca Cantrell – A Trace of Smoke (pub 2009, 4 stars)
  76. L.A. Larkin – The Genesis Flaw AUS (pub 2010, 2.5 stars)
  77. Charlie Huston – The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death (pub 2009, 3.5 stars)

Read but not reviewed

  • Peter May’s Blowback (meh)
  • Tarquin Hall’s The Case of the Missing Servant (good, funny)
  • Alafair Burke’s The Dead Connection (again, meh)
  • Simon Becket’s Written in Bone (good, atmospheric)
  • Alice LaPlante’s Turn of Mind (brilliant, harrowing if you have any personal experience of people with Alzheimer’s disease)
  • S.J. Watson’s Before I go to Sleep (wtfwajt*)

Actually I did sort of review both of these last two books as I happened to read them in quick succession and they were, in a way, tackling similar subjects.

Do you try to read new to you authors or do you stick more to old favourites? Have you found any amazing new to you authors in 2011?

*what the f*** were award judges thinking?

What’s in a Name?

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The What’s In A Name challenge is an annual one that looks simpler than it was. To read a paltry 6 books across a whole year is nothing really but a couple of the categories proved a little difficult for me. Funnily enough I had no problems with titles containing the word evil or books with a life stage in the name (though it possibly says something about my damaged psyche that all my options incorporated ‘death’) but I ended up having to cheat a little with the last category I finished – a book with a size in the title. I don’t suppose ‘short’ is really a size but the book I had selected (containing the word Quarters) ended up soaking in the washing up water for about an hour and it hasn’t been the same since. All but one of the six books I read were rated 3 stars or above which means this was a good challenge, quality wise, as well as being a bit of fun (if you want to know without clicking on the review links Three Seconds was the book that did little for me).

Anyway thanks to Beth Fish Reads for hosting the challenge and though I am not intending to participate in more than one challenge next year if I do find myself looking for a bit of a challenge I can see myself being tempted by the 2012 version of this challenge

Review: A Short Cut to Paradise by Teresa Solana

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The private consultants who aren’t quite detectives who made their debut in A Not So Perfect Crime are back for another adventure among the upper echelons of Barcelona society. This time they are tasked with proving that Amadeu Cabestany was not responsible for the murder of famous novelist Marina Dolç The police have arrested him on the grounds that he was heard to threaten Marina and on the night she was killed she had won a prestigious literary award that he was sure he was about to win. But his agent and some-time lover does not believe in his guilt and she turns to Eduard and Borja for assistance. They discover that Amadeu’s alibi is very shaky as there are no witnesses to his leaving the hotel before Dolç’s death and being mugged at a local disco and no one else seems to have much of a motive. They do however start to learn some interesting things about the famous author’s life.

There’s something about a holiday week that calls for lighter than normal reading and I was quite chuffed to find this book unread on my shelves as I had such fond memories of the first book in the series. Happily this one too is clever and funny and thoroughly engaging; perfect for reading on a warm summer day with a glass (or two) of sangria. It’s probably not the book to reach for if you like your mystery solving to be at the forefront for the length of the novel but if you don’t mind the odd (in some cases very odd) tangent or three you could do a lot worse.

Eduard is a former lefty radical who spent 20 years as a middle-class banker before setting up in business with his twin brother Borja (formerly known as Pep). We see most of the tale through his eyes as he recounts the brothers’ attempts to uncover evidence and a suspect or two. Though not as strongly as he was in the first book, he is still vaguely put out by Borja’s social climbing, especially when it requires Eduard to wear classy suits rather than his preferred jeans and otherwise operate out of his comfort zone (heaven forbid he must spend a night in a five-star hotel). But at heart the relationship between the two brothers is sweet and a definite highlight of the novel, being the source of much humour.

The rest of the humour comes from the observations about local society. Although I know nothing about Catalan literary circles the depictions of the social events with public displays of bonhomie hiding private hatreds and petty jealousies was pitch-perfect. I just inserted the names of local authors in the roles of literary versus popular fiction authors to make the humour complete.Solana seems to take great relish in satirising literary circles and I suspect she particularly enjoyed writing the scene in which most of the players are accidentally drugged so that their true natures are on full display.

More poignant moments in the novel come from the short chapters told from perspectives other than Eduard’s. Among the ‘character vignettes’ we meet a man driven to undertake an armed robbery even though he has no criminal record, get a surreal glimpse of prison life for Amadeu who the other prisoners stay clear of due to his resemblance to a movie murderer and his seeming ability to cause grown men to die at his feet and even briefly meet a long-suffering policewoman who has to wrangle a rookie cop with a big mouth. All of these are delightful interludes as well as providing little nuggets of information which help make sense of the overall story.

The crime’s resolution offered a slightly unsatisfactory note in that it didn’t quite make sense but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this slightly surreal and very witty tale of literary madness which gave me one more reason to be glad I’m a reader not a writer.  I am pleased to learn (via excellent Spanish-reading blogger Jose Ignacio at The Game’s Afoot) that a third book has been released. Translation now please.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

A Short Cut to Paradise has been reviewed at Euro Crime, International Noir Fiction (though noir this definitely isn’t) and Lizzie’s Literary Life

I’m slightly cheating in using this as the last book for my What’s In a Name challenge in the category of book with a size in the title. I suppose short isn’t officially a size but it will have to do as the book I was half way through reading (At Close Quarters) fell into the washing up sink and didn’t really recover as well as I might have hoped.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 3.5/5
Translator Peter Bush
Publisher Bitter Lemon Press [2011]
ISBN 9781904738558
Length 284 pages
Format paperback
Book Series #2 in the Eduard and Borja series
Source I bought it
Creative Commons Licence
This work by http://reactionstoreading.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Review: The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston

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Webster Fillmore Goodhue, Web for short, has been doing nothing much at all for the past year or so. Sleeping 15 hours a day and tacking the piss out of customers at his friend Chev’s tattoo parlour have pretty much filled his days since the trauma he was a part of took place. Chev is getting fed up and asks another friend of theirs, Po Sin to help. The help comes in the form of a job offer in which Web will work for Po Sin’s company, Clean Team, which cleans up after nasty, messy deaths. Web unexpectedly takes to the job but his salvation also leads him down a path to near ruin as he becomes caught up with the daughter of a suicide victim whom he cleans up for.

The male characters are here are a treat, somehow managing to surprise right through to the end at the same time as fitting the conventions of the noir end of the crime genre. On the surface Web is the standard no hoper so beloved of the genre but he has his reasons for being like he is and as readers learn about them and watch Web try to deal with the hand life has dealt him it’s hard not to grow to like him. Then again I’m a sucker for the sarcastic, well-aimed wisecrack. His friends are the good kind, even if they do choose tough love as their method for helping him out of the various messes he gets himself into. The point is they do help. The role of ‘the girl’ in this particular tale is taken by Soledad, probably the most conventional of the characters and the least well developed but she fulfils the necessary functions of ensnaring Web and performing the odd bit of treachery.

I really liked the writing too, especially the dialogue, which is smart, funny and fast: absolutely perfect for the setting and the people. I didn’t notice it was quite so full of crude language until I went trawling to find a section to quote here and realised there was hardly a line to be found without several ‘f’ words. But I think the situations being depicted here – whether that’s yanking the chain of yet another moron wanting a ring of barbed wire tattooed around his arm, having one’s delicate body parts pierced by a sarcastic sadist, cleaning up brains ‘n’ stuff from all manner of crevices or being threatened by certified gangsters on the prowl for almonds – probably all qualify for more than the average amount of swearing.

The internet tells me this is Huston’s most mainstream novel and, if true, I suspect it’ll be the only one of his I read. I have a fairly low tolerance for gruesomely described violence and even this book took me beyond my personal limit a time or two. I was happy enough in this instance to read to the end because I was enjoying the main story and the character development but I did find some of the intricately described violence a bit repetitive. For my tastes less of this would have made a better book but I do understand I am in the minority on this; fans of Huston in particular or noir in general probably don’t think there was enough of all that.

I only read noir occasionally and generally stick to the comic stuff of which I’d say this is a good example though perhaps not as great as I was expecting based on the many (many) superlative-laden reviews I’ve read. Without a huge number of comparisons to make though I’m probably not the best judge of such things, I just know I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as Plugged, though it was still a very good read and recommended for those who can cope with the violence and swearing.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating 3.5/5
Publisher Ballantine Books [2009]
ISBN 9780345501110
Length 319 pages
Format paperback
Book Series standalone
Source I bought it
Creative Commons Licence
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Wrapping up the Nordic Book Challenge 2011

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I aimed for the Odin level of this challenge which required me to read 11-20 books during the year but I ended up at the Valhalla level of 20+ books (23 and a half if I’m scrupulous).

Many of these are great books, as can be seen from the high number of red stars (which indicates rated 3 or above) but if forced to pick a favourite I’d probably pick BOX 21. Or UNTIL THY WRATH BE PAST. Or THE QUARRY. I didn’t notice until writing up this wrap up that so many of the books were set in Sweden, next year I’ll try to expand to other countries in the region.

Books Read

Thanks to Zee from Notes from the North for hosting the challenge, sorry I dropped the ball on linking my review posts (one of the reasons I’m reducing my challenge participation next year) but I did enjoy the reading.

Review: A Trace of Smoke by Rebecca Cantrell

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I’ve had Rebecca Cantrell’s A Trace of Smoke on my shelves forever (well, since Norman told me to get it anyway) but every time my eye rested on the exquisite cover I thought “oh no not another book about bloody Nazis” and read something else (Nazis and gangsters being the two themes I feel like I am done with for this lifetime). I’m not sure what prompted me to actually pick it up now, probably that gorgeous cover that I’m not meant to judge by, but I’m glad I did because on top of it being very good the bloody Nazis are not the focal point of the story.

The book is set in Berlin at the tail end of the Weimar republic, just before Hitler takes power. Hannah Vogel is a 30-something journalist who spots a photo of her younger brother Ernst’s dead body pinned up in the Hall of the Unnamed Dead at the police station when she is checking in as part of her crime beat duties. She is devastated but she cannot tell anyone because she and Ernst have loaned their identity papers to Jewish friends who have tried to escape to America, and this crime will come to light if she identifies Ernst’s picture. So she sets out to investigate the death herself, risking her own safety in unravelling Ernst’s unorthodox life as an openly gay man who works as a cross-dressing night club singer and has a string of influential lovers, many of whom have reason to want to silence him.

For a few pages at the beginning I worried this book was going to be some kind of sensationalist thriller with scenes meant to shock rather than advance the story or explore some nuance of a character’s life but it soon started to take a more sensitive and mature route to its climax. The success of tackling such a potentially tawdry subject matter is due mostly to the development of Hannah as a character who was a wholly believable and engaging person. She had looked after her much younger brother for most of his life and was accepting of his homosexuality unlike her older sister who had virtually disowned Ernst. Still she couldn’t help wishing a different life for him that didn’t involve the ever-present threat of beatings by the brown shirts or imprisonment for what was a crime at the  time and her attitude seemed very natural (though possibly a tad too modern?). Her willingness to go to any lengths to discover his killer, even take on a senior Nazi party official, is depicted believably and, as many crime writers have done before, Cantrell uses the fact of Hanna’s journalism to make her amateur sleuthing more believable than it would be if she were any other kind of normal citizen. She is helped and hindered in her quest by a variety of mostly intriguing and credible characters including a romantic interest (who helps) and the man Ernst had been living with at the time of his death (who doesn’t help). Her meeting with and growing attachment to 5 year-old Anton, who plays a key role in the story’s resolution, is quite wonderful to watch develop over the course of the novel.

The other standout feature of A Trace of Smoke for me is the historical setting which quickly absorbed me with its myriad of tiny, plausible details. Hannah’s needing to lodge her newspaper columns under a male pseudonym, the various indicators of the country’s slide towards legal persecution of Jewish people and other minorities, the woeful economic state lingering after the hyperinflation of the early 20′s are all drawn beautifully and help create the cloying atmosphere in which Hannah must untangle the threads of Ernst’s life.

Although it does take place in a thematically dark setting and has its harrowing passages A Trace of Smoke also has moments of joy and laughter and is all the better for being balanced like that. And even though one or two of those bloody Nazis do make an appearance the book is about much more than them. It’s about good people doing the right thing even (especially?) when to do so is dangerous and it’s about how, sometimes, the things we do for love can win out over the things that are done in the name of hate.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

A Trace of Smoke has been reviewed at Crime Scraps, DJ’s Krimiblog

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4/5
Author website http://rebeccacantrell.com/
Publisher Tom Doherty Associates [2009]
ISBN 9780765326904
Length 319 pages
Format trade paperback
Book Series #1 in the Hannah Vogel series
Source I bought it
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Review: Almost Blue by Carlo Lucarelli

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I nearly didn’t read this book because it concerns itself with a serial killer: a subject I think I have just about reached my lifetime limit on. However I had read several good reviews though I think the bigger factor for me just now was that it is blessedly, mercifully, wonderfully short. I am a bit fed up with massive, bloated tomes.

It is a story in three voices. In Bologna in Italy we meet Simone a young, blind man who rarely leaves the attic of his family’s apartment where he spends most of his time listening to a peculiar combination of jazz music, police scanners and other people’s mobile phone conversations. Ispettore Grazia Negro works for a special police unit which deals with serial crimes. She and the Unit’s head have linked several murders of young students together and have finally convinced judicial prosecutors that there is a single case to be investigated. The third voice is that of the killer who needs to quiet the noises in his head.

Although overall I liked the book I thought that only one of these voices, that of Simone, worked consistently well as both a mechanism for developing a strong character and for advancing the story. Lucarelli has really done an outstanding job of depicting what it is like to be this blind individual…not the stereotyped generic blind person common to much fiction but this particular man. He can’t understand descriptive words that others use and so has invented his own descriptive language which assigns colours to voices and so on and his description of falling in love with the voice singing a particular song he heard on his school bus radio is quite exquisite. The voice of Grazia is less engaging for me, partly because she spends half of the short book being impacted by her period pain (this is how you know it’s a book written by a bloke) and partly because I thought she flip-flopped too much between accepting the rampant misogyny around her and being angry about it. The voice of the killer was the least original of the three and could have been left out of the book entirely in my humble opinion.

As a story I found the book more consistent as we were led down a path of first linking the murders together then inserting our three characters into the narrative and having them .meet up with each other in intriguing ways. This could have been a cliché-fest but Lucarelli avoided all the pitfalls to produce a really gripping, if somewhat violent story. However at no point was anything gratuitous and in a book so short it would have been almost impossible to linger too long on any blood-soaked scene so I think even those who shy away from darker books could cope with this.

Even with its flaws this book did draw me in quickly and deeply to its setting and the overlapping, claustrophobic worlds of its three protagonists. The sparse writing style and bare kind of translation, which kept as many native Italian words as could be gotten away with, combined to make it a quick yet immersive reading experience. I gobbled up the whole thing in one day and then felt compelled to hunt down some of the music mentioned within the story to make myself an Almost Blue playlist which is not something I do very often at all. I am looking forward to other books by this author.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Almost Blue has been reviewed at Fleur Fisher in her world, Petrona, Reading, fuelled by tea (where Yvann didn’t finish it for some reasons I agree with though I thought the translation was better than Yvann did), Reviewing the Evidence and The View from the Blue House (where I agree with Rob, the book was almost too short)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 3.5/5
Translator Oonagh Stransky
Publisher Vintage Books [this edition 2004, original edition 1997]
ISBN 9780099459439
Length 169 pages
Format paperback
Book Series #1 in the Inspector Negro series
Source I bought it
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