Crime fiction

[Kevin S]

I'm most of the way through my third in the 'Jackson Brodie' series by Kate Atkinson. They're as much about relationships, hopes and fears and attitudes as the crimes themselves. And as AdeC said on another thread, Atkinson is extremely witty and pleasant to read. (And I think Big Sky is the next one in the series for me.)

(Edit, no, Big Sky is #5)

[Sunderporinostesta]

Christine Falls by “Benjamin Black”. Way way too long. I preferred him playing at being Raymond Chandler.

[Benjm]

I'm just getting towards then end of Ian Rankin's A Song for the Dark Times. It's his strongest in a while I think, partly because the plot has a compelling reason for the retired Rebus to be involved, rather than him being crowbarred in from commercial rather than dramatic necessity.

[Sunderporinostesta]

Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby.
Bug is a troubled black geezer living in red neck country wrestling with a few problems other than those that brings…..like criminality in his and his families background…..and money troubles X4……and more. Still I suppose it can’t be all bad when you own the fastest car for miles around. Awwwwhh Bug son, what were you thinking? Look Bugs a good guy trying desperately to stay on the straight and narrow right? Then two old redneck loser acquaintance brothers appear with “one last big job”. You know the drill.

A few too many car chases, shootings and explosions for me but I’ll go see the film. In my minds eye I was seeing a young Denzil Washington (I know I know) as Bug which I suspect the writer was as well. Probably too old now though. What about the feller who drove Tom Cruise around in LA? He’s been down the motorised mayhem path before. I see Ed somebody in the main opposition villain role, the lad who played Chet Baker? Their names? Bollocks I’m not doing all the casting depts work for them.

Unfortunately too few of the characters totally zing off the page which gives a slight central casting vibe. Having said that I didn’t half fancy his Mrs AND her sister who Bug believes lives way better than you’d expect for a hairdresser. A statement that plays no part whatsoever in the tale. A series beckons?
You just know old Bugs gonna have trouble with both the SIL and his not so grown up as she thinks daughter by his white ex somewhere along the line, shes got “hassle magnet” written all over her that one plus Bugs not keen on her wannabe gangster boyfriend. At all. No sir. Not one bit. Come to think of it his white ex and her racist mam look good for a books worth of shit slung in his direction.
Best of luck to you Bug son. You’re gonna need it.

[Felicity, I guess so]

I got a signed HB copy of that cos a pal got two for his birthday. I enjoyed it but there were some clichéd elements as you imply. Filmwise the getaway manoeuvre would be quite something!

[Sunderporinostesta]

I got a signed HB copy of that cos a pal got two for his birthday. I enjoyed it but there were some clichéd elements as you imply. Filmwise the getaway manoeuvre would be quite something!

Agreed about the getaway.
I read it after it’s bigging up in reviews, forums, blogs etc and it’s actually very run of the mill. Having now read nearly everything by the crime greats Hammet, Chandler, Leonard, Higgins, Moseley, Elroy, MacDonald, Crumley, Pelecanos, Thomas etc Ive now resigned myself to feeling let down when every months Guardian hyped crime classics turn out to be…….nothing particularly special.
Re-reading the greats may be the way to go.

[Sunderporinostesta]

I see Ian Rankin has finished off a couple of William McIllvaneys incomplete Laidlaw novels. Saying nowt.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Interesting, seeing as McIllvaney's son Liam is a published crime novelist, too

[Levin]

I've been watching Endeavour and realised that I've never experienced any Morse. What are the books like?

[Sunderporinostesta]

Morse? Never read one though MrsSundeps read em all. She prefers a more cosy kind of crime to me.

The kid who plays endeavour is a submariner in the current bbc series the name of which escapes me. Vigil? There was a three hander scene in which they were all UKTV cops who’d been series leads. It looked like the writers were having a bit of fun with the concept.

The whole submarine thing reminded me last night of working at Wemyss Bay power station and looking out on the Clyde estuary when two periscopes approached each other and passed like errrh subs in the night. I took a photo but the camera I had with me was a little kids spy type thing, basically a plastic wrap around thing just slightly bigger than the film cartridge. The periscopes weren’t visible on the developed photo.

Ive recently reread nine 80s-00s Elmore Leonards. Still great.

Just finished James Sallis 2019 effort Sarah Jane. Basically the internal monologue of a female vet-drifter who ends up a small town sheriff…..until her past comes calling. Very good. I couldn’t picture anyone playing her in the film which is unusual in itself.

[Benjm]

I read all of the Morse books back in the '80s and '90s but haven't revisited them since. From memory, both the character and settings as originally written were seedier and more down at heel than in the television films. The TV series began when Colin Dexter was about halfway through the run of books and he admitted that it increasingly influenced his sense of the characters. The last few I read on publication more from habit and to tick off the set than with any great anticipation. The early ones wouldn't be mistaken for Derek Raymond but there is more bite than one might expect from the screen rendition.

[Amor de Cosmos]

As mentioned elsewhere I recently finished Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver. Though well over half a century since publication, it's the best courtroom novel I've ever read. It recounts a rape and consequent revenge killing in a northern Michigan resort. Though forensically detailed on criminal law and courtroom process, it's far from boring. There are many first class US fiction writers who are, or have been, practicing lawyers, Harper Lee, John Grisham and Scott Turow among them but none, to my knowledge, have combined both skills as successfully as Traver ( real name John D. Voelker) does here. While it's definitely "of it's time" this novel is gripping from beginning to end. Absolutely recommended.

[Sunderporinostesta]

Finished “Only To Sleep” by Lawrence Osborne in the early hours of this morning. It’s a 2018 licensed by Raymond Chandlers estate Marlowe novel.

Auld Phil is old Phil now and retired to Mexico. A LA based insurance company suspect the recent death by drowning in Mexico of a dodgy property speculator is nowt of the sort. Phils bored of retirement so says he’ll look into it. I’m seeing Salma Hayek as the widow, Elliott Gould as Marlowe again, Ross from friends and Pottsy from Happy Days as the two insurance firm fellers. Hackman, Dreyfus or Fishburn as his old cop acquaintance.

I thought id done all four licensed full length Marlowes. It turns out there’s an unlicensed one. “Ten Per Cent Of Life” a 1987 Spanish novel translated to English. How that works legally with the estate I don’t know? Anyone? In it Marlowe investigates the 1956 suicide of a Hollywood agent. One of whose clients is Raymond Chandler……

[Philip Marlow]

Finished “Only To Sleep” by Lawrence Osborne in the early hours of this morning. It’s a 2018 licensed by Raymond Chandlers estate Marlowe novel.

I liked that one. Rather more, in fact, than I liked the John Banville, or rather the Benjamin Black, take on Marlowe.

In terms of Chandleresque private eye fiction I took a real liking to Malcolm Pryce's Louis Knight mysteries, all set in a weird version of Aberystwyth controlled, initially at least, by Druid gangsters.

[Sunderporinostesta]

My copy of “Ten Per Cent Of Life” as mentioned to posts back has turned up in the post today. Starting it right now.

Edit: Looks like it was officially sanctioned by the Chandler estate. I’ll leave it unsanctioned on wiki for the time being. Though as I’ve never had anything to do with wiki entry editing/writing it may be an interesting experience. Don’t any of you lot nip in ahead of me.

[Sunderporinostesta]

Just taking City Of Margins by William Boyle back to the library.
Set in South Brooklyn in early 90s. A bunch of lost souls whose stories unknowingly overlap are heading towards a slightly anti climatic ending. It’s the third of his I’ve read. He’s getting there. There’s a stone classic book-film combi coming from him soon. Scorsese n Di Niro have an eye on him I’ll bet.

[ursus arctos]

A new name to me, but south Brooklyn isn't really a thing.

Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Coney Island, Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, Canarsie even Sunset Park are all things (and quite different from each other)

South Brooklyn no.

[Sporting]

But but but...:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Brooklyn

[Sunderporinostesta]

A new name to me, but south Brooklyn isn't really a thing.

Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Coney Island, Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, Canarsie even Sunset Park are all things (and quite different from each other)

South Brooklyn no.

I think the blurb on the back actually mentioned Southern Brooklyn and I inadvertently altered it not knowing what I was doing. Would Southern Brooklyn be a thing?

[ursus arctos]

Geographically, but not something that residents would recognise.

It might be roughly equivalent to "the North of England", but even more diverse.

[ursus arctos]

Though as Sporting's link shows, South Brooklyn is a historical term (not really in current use, I'm afraid) that is very different from Southern Brooklyn.

[ursus arctos]

I now see that Boyle's first novel is called Gravesend, and this one sounds as if it is grounded in a similar setting.

I bet the publisher decided that not NYC readers had no idea where Gravesend was, and wanted to convey the idea that this wasn't set in Lena Dunham Hipster Brooklyn, Park Slope Hyper-Gentrified Brooklyn or Biggie Smalls Brooklyn.

[Gangster Octopus]

Not Ebbsfleet?

[ursus arctos]

The one in Brooklyn has Dutch origins

[Sunderporinostesta]

I now see that Boyle's first novel is called Gravesend, and this one sounds as if it is grounded in a similar setting.

I bet the publisher decided that not NYC readers had no idea where Gravesend was, and wanted to convey the idea that this wasn't set in Lena Dunham Hipster Brooklyn, Park Slope Hyper-Gentrified Brooklyn or Biggie Smalls Brooklyn.

That’s what first brought him to my attention. Why would an American crime writer set a novel on the North Kent coast?