Crime fiction

[Felicity, I guess so]

Crime fiction

Well there's one where he goes to Cuba (Havana Bay?).

Bear with me and I'll look it up:

This excellent website lists them thus: http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/S_...ruz.html#Renko

Gorky Park (1981), Polar Star (1989), Red Square (1992), Havana Bay (1999), Wolves Eat Dogs (2004)
Stalin’s Ghost (2007)

[Guest]

Crime fiction

Found the latest Ian Rankin in my local second hand shop. Didn't realise it wasn't a Rebus until I started reading it and much like most of his non-Rebus stuff its okay so far, nothing special. Damn.

But I also found 3 Jim Thompsons for a couple of bucks each - The Alcoholics, The Criminal and another one (I can't remember which one it was) Which I'm overjoyed about.

I'd also recommend Derek Raymond. In particular the Factory series. British Noir at its best - and particularly gruesome with it.

Publisher Serpents Tail http://www.serpentstail.co.uk currently have them 3 for the price of 2 with free postage (well my sister now knows what to get me for Xmas)

[Ant van Oviedo]

Crime fiction

I've really enjiyed the last two Kate Atkinson novels, featuring the detective Jackson Brodie: Case Histories and One Good Turn. They descend into farce towards the end slightly, but are very nicely paced, interwoven stories, especially the first.

[Sixmartletsandaseagull]

Crime fiction

The Purple Cow wrote:

The Pepe Carvalho books by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán are great. They are a combination of detective novels, late 20th century Spanish social history class, and Spanish cuisine recipe books.

There are loads of them, about 16 I think, but only a few have been translated into English.

I’ve read ‘Tattoo,’ ‘Murder in the Central Committee’ which is about the self-destruction of the Spanish Communist party, and ‘An Olympic Death’ which is about the 1992 Olympics and the transformation of Barcelona.

I have only read the Buenos Aires Quintet in which Carvalho's uncle asks him to find his cousin in BA. It is very good, and from my non-fiction reading of the period of the "disappeared" in Argentina is well researched and insightful. It is set after that period, but in order to solve the case he has to delve into Argentina's "troubled past" as the blurb says.

There is also has some good writing about food and the culture of eating, especially at a big family asado if I remember rightly.

Another crime fiction character that has more than a passing relationship with food is Montalbano (by Andrea Camilleri) and the frequent parts where he is eating in trattorias and restaurants or finding sumptuous Sicilian dishes in the fridge made for him by his cleaner-cum-housekeeper are terrific.

As indeed are the stories. A few episodes are being screened on BBC4 in 2009, with subtitles, and the books and the TV adaptations are very good.

I think food adds authenticity to these characters; I really like it when Maigret sens out for beer and sandwiches.

I also think Dibdin's Aurelio Zen is good, and it was introduced to me by a professor of Italian History, who thought the political and institutional machinations very well done.

I have only recently gotten into Wallander (Henning mankell)and really like the pace and wider political/institutional commentary in them. I am told Kenneth Brannagh is to play Wallandar on British TV soon.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Crime fiction

Thanks for the heads up on the Camilleri TV series. I read the 1st 3 books-didn't think a great deal of the 1st one, but they do improve.

Branagh as Wallender is a worse piece of miscasting than John Hannah as Rebus, which was bad.

And Dibdin's Aurelio Zen novels really do provide a brilliant survey of all that's wrong in Italian society-I love them. Maybe that's why I didn't immediately fall for Camilleri-by comparison it was somewhat low-key.

[Sixmartletsandaseagull]

Crime fiction

Felicity, I guess so wrote:

Thanks for the heads up on the Camilleri TV series. I read the 1st 3 books-didn't think a great deal of the 1st one, but they do improve.

Branagh as Wallender is a worse piece of miscasting than John Hannah as Rebus, which was bad.

And Dibdin's Aurelio Zen novels really do provide a brilliant survey of all that's wrong in Italian society-I love them. Maybe that's why I didn't immediately fall for Camilleri-by comparison it was somewhat low-key.

Yes the Montalbano books definitely get better as they go on. He is of course huge in Italy, and the latest TV adaptation, which aired a few days ago got a massive audience. I really like Montalbano, and having been a Zen devotee, have started to prefer the Montalbano ones. The guy who plays him, Luca Zingaretti is very charismatic and just right I think.

A few of the Zen stories have been published in Italian but I have yet to meet someone who has read them here.

I would agree about Wallander, despite being a big fan of Branagh, and am a bit anxiious about watching them, as I have a very clear idea of what I think Wallender looks and feels like.

I like the way each Zen is situated in a different Italian city or region, though I felt he lost his way towards the end. I have not read the final one, following Dibdin's death. The early ones are particularly good.

[Ant van Oviedo]

Crime fiction

sixmartletsandaseagull wrote:
I think food adds authenticity to these characters; I really like it when Maigret sens out for beer and sandwiches.

Totally agree; interesting, then, that reading the Rebus novels I was always struck by just how poorly everyone ate all the time: the highlight of the day (apart from the pub) was getting some sort of pastry-filled nightmare from a "baker's". Must be an Edinburgh thing, along with the ubiquitous deep fried pizzas and Mars bars.

[rick derris]

Crime fiction

can i echo six weeks after the original post, pj tracy books are excellent. well the one i read on holiday 3 years ago certainly was. a generic killer on the loose and who is it? just better than most

speaking of which, john sandford. reading 'dark of the moon' about a load of murders amongst 80 somethings linking back to the 1960's free love. superb so far, stayed up until 3 am reading it last sunday, which had inevitable knock on's

[delicatemoth]

Crime fiction

That's a great link Felicity, cheers.

I'm addicted to Rebus books at the moment, they are so more-ish. Ant, the Scottish diet is famed for that sort of thing. Scottish chip shops are wonderful places, full of such delicacies as macaroni pies, mushy pea fritters and battered smoked sausages.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Crime fiction

Just finished Michael Chabon's 'The Yiddish Policemen's Union'. It's the book that got a lot of attention last year, set in a notional Alaskan Jewish refugee state which is about to revert to US control.

I probably missed some of the chess references, not being very keen on chess, but it was both funny and hard-hitting in a Chandleresque style and insightful about geopolitics in a world-without-Israel.

Am now looking forward to getting hold of his Superman-inspired novel: The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

[Sundeporino]

Crime fiction

Just finished "Quiver" by Peter (elmore's son) Leonard. Its pretty good in a sort of "his dad phoning it in" style.
One of the characters is driving while listening to a Barack Obama speech on the Detroit radio news. Is this his first mention in fiction?

[Felicity, I guess so]

Crime fiction

Some of the stories the Republicans and their media chums spread about him were purely fictional

[kugelrund]

Crime fiction

Lyra wrote:

If Mrs Bafflin has not tried him then she must, but I'm sure she will have?

Thanks for all those recommendations, Lyra. In fact, she hasn't read any English crime, or indeed many crime books at all. I'm converting her. I got her a PD James to start with. The English atmosphere side of things is because she's pining for England. The weirdo.

[Wyatt Earp]

Crime fiction

Ant van Oviedo wrote:

Must be an Edinburgh thing...

Oh yes.

Don't get me started.

[kugelrund]

Crime fiction

Just finished A Quiet Flame, the latest in Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series, which is divided between Berlin in 1932 and a Nazi-teeming Buenos Aires in 1950.

I've not read the original 'Berlin Noir' triology, but I had the same problem with this one that I did with The One from the Other, which is the post-trilogy Gunther comeback gig.

I find his dialogue rather heavy-going. It's incredibly clunky at times, and the harder he tries to write hard-boiled stuff, the lumpier it gets. I also have a suspension of disbelief problem, in that when he sets up an about-to-die showdown situation (as he does in both books I've read), I can't help thinking "Well, you obviously didn't die or you wouldn't be telling us about it now." Which is obviously partly my fault, but also the author's for exposing the weakness with first-person crime novels in general if you orchestrate such obvious no-way-out climactic scenes.

[Banana Banana]

Crime fiction

The only place I have seen a chippy sell a deep-fried Mars Bar is Witney.

I have just finished the latest Christopher Brookmyre A Snowball in Hell. Very good as usual, has touches of Ian Banks' Complicity and, if you like the thought of Simon Cowell getting decapitated then you'll love this.

[Max Payne]

Crime fiction

Are we talking Black Humour and Crime here? I'll have to check this out.

[kugelrund]

Crime fiction

Christopher Brookmyre's great. For me, The Sacred Art of Stealing is his best.

In other news, I just read To The Nines, my first Janet Evanovich novel in the Stephanie Plum series.

Normally the cover alone would put me off because I'm a cover snob, but I was desperate. I wish I hadn't bothered. A light holiday-reading type of thing, which I suppose is her aim, but it was utterly unengaging from beginning to end. And she's written loads of the bloody things.

[JtS]

Crime fiction

I'm reading Lemons Never Lie by Richard Stark (aka Donald E. Westlake), I got it as I like the Hard Case Crime series. It's started very nicely. I hadn't read any Stark/Westlake books up until a few weeks ago, having looked into Stark a bit I found he'd written loads and it looked like my kind of thing.

I read Point Blank and despite Parker being a complete arsehole I really enjoyed it.

I'll be reading as much of his a possible.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Crime fiction

Just read another Mankell/Wallander, The Fifth Woman which is the best so far, I reckon.

Also read Watcher in the Pine the 3rd in Rebecca Pawel's series set in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, featuring a guardia civil (and Falangist) detective. Not as good as the other two, but, at the risk of a spoiler, the central relationship gets less convincing as the series progresses.

Anybody else read them? It's a US press 'Soho' and I bought them all 2nd hand/online, so I dunno if they're even in print over here.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Crime fiction

Me again.

Anybody else read Chris Petit (British independent film maker, director of Radio On)?

I've just finished Back from the Dead which was like Performance meets Ellroy (but with a strong hommage to one of my favourite crime novels: The Eye of the Beholder by Marc Behm).

I was sucked into it and impressed by aspects of it without feeling it totally pulled it off, but well worth a read. I think he's done one other before that, in the 90s

[delicatemoth]

Crime fiction

I read 'Watcher in the Pine' and really enjoyed it. I read another in that series but don't think I've done the first one. I have a bit of a thing for stuff set in the Spanish Civil War or aftermath, so it was always likely to be up my street.

I've read all the Wallander books, and I think my favourite is 'Sidetracked'.

Recent discoveries - Maj Sjowall/Per Wahloo - 'Roseanna' The first in the ten-book Martin Beck series which supposedly pioneered the psychological/socially concerned type of 'tec novel. Whether that's publisher hyperbole I couldn't say, but it is very good.

Yrsa Sigurdardottir - 'Last Rituals'
Witchcraft/history-themed Icelandic detective novel. Of high quality, very page-turnerish without being an absolute classic.

(They had a 'Nordic crime' table at Foyle's South Bank)

[Amor de Cosmos]

Crime fiction

Roseanna is, by some distance, the weakest of the Martin Beck books. Not that it's bad, far from it, but as Sjowall and Wahloo get into their stride the characters become more fleshed out. It is a truly stunning series.

[edit] Try and read them in order if you can, it does make a difference.

["Hold on, buddy!"]

Crime fiction

Felicity, I guess so wrote:

Me again.

Anybody else read Chris Petit (British independent film maker, director of Radio On)?

I've just finished Back from the Dead which was like Performance meets Ellroy (but with a strong hommage to one of my favourite crime novels: The Eye of the Beholder by Marc Behm).

I was sucked into it and impressed by aspects of it without feeling it totally pulled it off, but well worth a read. I think he's done one other before that, in the 90s

I remember reading 'The Psalm Killer' by him when I was about sixteen. It's set in Northern Ireland during the troubles, I think and remember thinking it was really quite good. May be worth a re-read.

[erwin]

Crime fiction

Can anyone help me to remember the name of a crime/cop book that I must have read about 15-20 years ago? I thought it was by Ed McBain, but I'm not sure.

It's about a (NY?) cop who is to blame for an old lady's dog getting killed. It's such a mundane situation but gets really poignant as the incident and the attached sense of guilt slowly but surely destroys the man.

I'd really like to read it again.