BookGazette

The Litigators, by John Grisham

Peter — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 20:55:07 +0000

The Litigators is a fun book. John Grisham knows how to tell a story in an entertaining manner, and in this book he does it in a light-handed manner which I suspect he has had a lot of fun writing. It’s a story of misery and greed in all walks of life, fertilized with the dream of a huge settlement.

In this tale, lawyers in a sleazy little Chicago law firm that is conveniently located near an intersection known for its high accident rate, stumble over an opportunity for a huge tort suit. The firm is Finley & Figg, consisting of the reserved and grumpy Oscar Finley and the alcoholic, cheap and unethical Wally Figg, partners in the constant ambulance chasing of their insignificant and unsuccessful firm. They have not had a decent case in years – actually they have never had a decent case. Now these bottom feeders see an opportunity, and realize that although they know nothing about how huge cases like these are handled and have never actually had any experience in court, they can sign up clients and run coattail on the big, prestigious and rich firms specializing in the huge mass tort cases.

Now they get a case as well as a new associate: A dead drunk lawyer from one of the big firms in town accidentally stumbles into their office. Meet David Zinc, a young Harvard graduate who after five years is already burned out. After a serious bender he feels a need to do something else – he wants to get in touch with how legal work is really done, and Finley & Figg looks just as good or bad, as any other two-dime law shop out there. At least, Zinc thinks, it can’t possibly be worse than the huge firm he has spent time in so far.

So there they are, the wanna-be litigators: Finley & Figg suddenly has a big new case and a brand new associate who even seems smart. They feel ready to seize the moment and move into the big time. Their ticket is Krayoxx, an extremely popular drug, the number one cholesterol reducer for the dangerously overweight, produced by Varrick Labs, a giant pharmaceutical company with annual sales of $25 billion. F & F can smell the money!

Of course, it almost seems too good to be true. And it is much too good to be true.

I laughed out loud several times reading The Litigators, and I greatly enjoyed all the shady characters and the characterizations of the legal wolves in this book. A great romp, excellent entertainment and good, clean fun. John Grisham still delivers the goods.

Only Time Will Tell, by Jeffrey Archer

Peter — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 00:58:43 +0000

I like reading Jeffrey Archer. In my opinion – one which is not necessarily widely shared, for Jeffrey Archer is a controversial person and a controversial writer – Sir Jeffrey Archer is one of the very best fiction writers of our time. He is simply very good at spinning entertaining tales! He excels when it comes to tales of intense competition and stories with a “rags to riches”-theme. Only Time Will Tell (The Clifton Chronicles) – is of the latter variety.

The story is set in Britain in the 1920s and 30s. The main character is Harry Clifton, a young man born into a poor family. He is a special young man for two reasons. One is talent: He is an excellent tenor – so good that he is wanted as a soloist in the best choirs – and he possesses an excellent head as well. The second is heritage: Harry‘s official father is a dead worker, but is seems quite likely that he actually is the son a very rich and well-connected man.

Harry‘s story is told from the perspectives of several different people that play important roles in the saga of his very intriguing life. Each narrator adds to or changes what had been related previously. So the understanding of the events – of what it really was that happened; of the how’s and why’s – is deepened and widened by each successive re-telling. It’s an interesting technique, but also one that is quite demanding as the story can easily become so complex that the reader loses interest. In my opinion, Archer pulls it off very well: In this case the technique made the story richer and more fascinating.

The crux of the story to some extent is the mystery of Harry Clifton’s parentage: who was his father? This mystery, in turn, becomes a kind of focal point for other mysteries as well as some of the key conflicts between the characters in the novel, and as something that places the extreme sacrifices of Harry‘s mother in a quite interesting perspective.

Only Time Will Tell is a splendid and very well-told tale of people from both sides of that very deep divide that ran through all Western societies in the twentieth century: namely class; and the huge differences between the haves and the have-nots – perhaps especially in England with its titled upper class and their elite institutions. The writing is very good and the characterizations are mostly excellent. The story moves at a more than sufficient speed and I had a hard time putting Only Time Will Tell down. A great and fun read!

Praise for Only Time Will Tell:

“Archer delivers another page-turning, heart-stopping saga, with delightful twists, and a surprise ending… readers will surely wait for the next with bated breath.”
— Publishers Weekly

“What appears at the outset to be a straightforward coming-of-age tale becomes, by the end, a saga of power, betrayal, and bitter hatred. The novel ends on a deliberately dark note, setting the stage for the sequel…An outstanding effort from a reliable veteran.”
— Booklist (starred Review)

“I was utterly hooked. It was an absurdly enjoyable read.”
— Anthony Horowitz, Daily Telegraph (London)

“One of the top ten storytellers in the world.”
— Los Angeles Times

“There isn’t a better storyteller alive.”
— Larry King

Tripwire, by Lee Child

Peter — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:07:37 +0000

Jack Reacher’s world is not the same as the one you and I live in. Well. It is, but it still isn’t. Jack Reacher is different, and doesn’t share our way of looking at the world. He doesn’t own anything; he doesn’t live anywhere; he doesn’t belong. And so he views things a bit differently..

Tripwire, the third book in the celebrated Jack Reacher series and originally written in 1999, makes clear how and why Jack Reacher differs from most of the rest of us. If you haven’t read it yet, but have read some of the more recent books in the series and enjoyed them, this may be a good and more than sufficient reason to buy and read Tripwire.

But there are others reasons too. Such as an excellent plot. Where Reacher gets involved in a difficult and complicated case involving a PI from New York. A man who for some reason came all the way to Key West to find him, after which he was murdered. Why did he come looking for Jack? Why was he killed?

Surprisingly, the answers to these difficult questions lie buried deep in the jungles of Vietnam. And to find them and stay alive, Jack Reacher will have to use all his considerable skills as a military policeman and sleuth. As he digs, he touches on an old secret nobody really wants to surface and some are willing to kill to keep buried.

Tripwire is a great and very entertaining Jack Reacher and an important book for people wanting to understand the strange and elusive Jack. Very suspenseful as well, and with a twisted, dark plot. It is an excellent read, go get it!

“Child’s crisp prose, intriguing protagonist, and skilled storytelling should win fans. Suspense fiction doesn’t get much better than this…” —Library Journal

Blacklands, by Belinda Bauer – book review

Peter — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 03:14:05 +0000

Blacklands is a sensational crime fiction debut novel which won the prestigious CWA Gold Dagger Award in 2010. I usually try to know as little as possible about the books I review when I start to read them, but in this case it was different. I had already read a lot about Blacklands and Belinda Bauer when I began, and most of it was very, very positive. So naturally I had high expectations at the outset.

In the beginning, I was a bit underwhelmed. I felt that Belinda Bauer’s writing style was somewhat simplistic. The story of the eleven year old Steven Lamb was interesting: Both the poor living conditions, his difficult life, and his futile attempts to find the body of his missing uncle Billy Peters by digging in the moors of Exmoor, was well written and OK to read, but not much more. His grandmother was still waiting for her missing son to return home – after eighteen years! – and was still looking out of the windows for him, while Steven was convinced that he had been killed by the now imprisoned pedophile mass murderer Arnold Avery. Perhaps Steven wanted to find his body to put his grandmother’s mind to rest, or perhaps it was because he wanted to have all her attention, including the part of it she “wasted” by waiting for Billy? Who knows? And who cares, I thought. Interesting, but not marvelous or exceptional.

“Exmoor dripped with dirty bracken, rough, colorless grass, prickly gorse, and last year’s heather, so black it looked as if wet fire had swept across the landscape, taking the trees with it and leaving the moor cold and exposed to face the winter unprotected. Drizzle dissolved the close horizons and blurred heaven and earth into a grey cocoon around the only visible landmark – a twelve year old boy in slick black waterproof trousers but no hat, alone with a spade.”

As you can see, it is well written. But there are so many well written and somewhat interesting books!
But then something happened. Belinda Bauer introduced an exciting new element in the story. The increasingly frustrated Steven decides to write a letter to the mass murderer. He wants Avery to tell him where Billy’s body is buried!

But even after confessing to and being convicted for murdering multiple children, Avery refused to admit to killing Billy or where the body was buried. So how can Steven make him tell?

The correspondence between the innocent but very smart eleven year old Steven and the highly intelligent, very dangerous and extremely crafty mass murderer and manipulator Avery is masterful. Its introduction lifted the story in Backlands and transformed it in a very small number of pages from a sorry tale of longing and misery to an extremely well plotted, cunning and very intriguing crime fiction novel. A series of short, more or less cryptic messages, each totally innocent in form and containing nothing that even aroused the suspicion of the sensors of Avery’s prison, yet full of meaning and extremely pointed for sender and receiver.

After the introduction of the chilling correspondence, I could hardly put the book away. I raced through the pages. Even now, two weeks after I finished it, I rethink it and marvel at the cleverness of the twists Belinda Bauer introduced in this fascinating and compelling tale. Blacklands is a brilliant example of solid psychological crime fiction, and the fact that it is Bauer’s debut novel makes it all the more impressive a read. It’s a spare, finely drawn, exquisite thriller. To say that I recommend it seems to be not nearly enough in this case: To be fair to this amazing book I have to say that if you only plan to read one book this year, I urge you to consider Blacklands!

Knockemstiff, by Donald Ray Pollock

Peter — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:57:59 +0000

The United States of America is a huge country. A continent, actually. Most Europeans know the East Coast and the West Coast, which are both pretty similar to Europe – perhaps more to Northern Europe than the Southern countries. But there’s lots of land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that is quite different from the coasts. One such tragically unique pocket is the land that Donald Ray Pollock writes about in Knockemstiff.

Knockemstiff, Ohio is a real place – a place in what is known as the “hollers”. Backwards, somewhat isolated, mostly poor – a place where lives are lived and sometimes lost in a manner vastly different from lives lived in the big cities.. The residents of Knockemstiff that we meet in these stories have few prospects for success, and little hope of escape.

Donald Ray Pollock uses Knockemstiff as a setting for telling some of the weirdest and most disturbing stories you will ever encounter. Knockemstiff is a collection of short stories, with some characters that wind in and out of one story and another. When you have finished the first story, “Real Life”, you will probably lean back, feel a need to think about what you have just read, try to sort out your thoughts. Perhaps, like me, you think “well, at least if can’t get any worse that this”, or something along those lines.

If you do, then, like me, you are very, very wrong. The next story, “Dynamite Hole” is even worse. So much worse, in fact, that it can perhaps best be described as appalling. It truly is. And overall, the stories are just that: appalling. Ugly. They tell tales – about events, situations, people – that are all beyond our worst nightmares, and then some.

The stories are extremely tough to read. I was unable to handle more than two of these gritty and often depraved stories in a row. Mostly I only read one. After having read one or two stories, I focused on something else for a while, before returning to the next grueling tale.

What made me return to the book again and again was – I think – the writing of Donald Ray Pollock. His style feels like a kind of direct, to the point, low key reporting. I don’t know if the stories he tells are “true” or whether the people and circumstances he describes are close to “real”, but somehow he makes me believe they are. I read all the eighteen stories, and at the end of it all, I have to say that in addition to all the other things I feel and think about them, I also like and am fascinated by them. While reading I felt miraculously transferred into that alternate universe that may be Knockemstiff or just the “hollers” in general. And while it felt strange, it also felt oddly satisfying to visit. Or perhaps to know that it only was a visit, no more.

The language is colorful, the descriptions held in a subdued and understated form that belies the evil of the narrative -the overall effect is very evocative of time and place. Knockemstiff is a book I highly recommend, strange, exotic, mesmerizing, and oddly entertaining.

Agent of Rome: The Siege, by Nick Brown

Peter — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 20:08:30 +0000

The Siege is the debut novel by Nick Brown, and also the first book in a planned series entitled Agent of Rome. It is a great debut by an obviously very talented historical fiction author.

The novel is set in 270 AD, and takes place during a precarious time for the Roman Empire. Having suffered through the rule of several weak emperors in a row, the empire is no longer quite what it was. And now Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, whose family has ruled Roman provinces east of the Mediterranean for a long time as caretakers for Rome, has now turned her armies against her former masters and started a rebellion. The Roman legions, for long considered invincible, have been crushed in battle after battle. Arabia, Palestine and Egypt have all fallen to the well-trained forces of the ambitious Queen. Now she has set her sights on Antioch, the rich and famous trading city.

The young Cassius Corbulo has just finished his training as an officer in the Roman army and been recruited into the intelligence branch. Sent to the East, he has been assigned task of rounding up wounded legionaries from various Roman outposts around Antioch. While doing this, he receives new orders to go to the Roman fort Alauran, take command there, and defend it until reinforcements can arrive.

This, of course, is not a trivial task for a young man without fighting experience. Roman soldiers are usually commanded by officers with decades of experience, and most centurions are almost twice as old as he is. Even so, and order is an order.

Cassius knows his task is borderline impossible. But what meets him at Alauran makes him quickly realize that the he had underestimated the difficulties. Outside he is met with a pile of bodies. And the legionaries remaining at Alauran are demoralized, undisciplined, and they have not received pay for far too long. Not to mention that the fortress itself is poorly maintained.

Even so, with a crack force of Palmyrans just days away and getting closer all the time, Cassius must forge order out of the chaos that reigns, repair the fortress, and somehow prepare himself and the men for upcoming battle. Somehow he must find a way, against impossible odds, and try to carry out his orders to the best of his ability. Before it is over, this will require all of his considerable resourcefulness and almost all of his resources.

The Siege is an excellent debut novel and delivers a thrilling and fascinating coming-of-age adventure that had me glued to my chair. Nick Brown does not make his young protagonist into a superman, but rather makes him into an excellent motivator and organizer – a man who listens, learns, thinks, and finds solutions. I liked that, in fact I have already looking forward to the sequel! The Siege is an intelligent, very enjoyable, and well written historical fiction novel.

Praise for Agent of Rome: The Siege:

‘Agent of Rome is a masterful debut from a new author completely at home in this era; the writing is deft, the action swift and bloody and the characters believable and engaging. I look forward greatly to the next one.’ (Manda Scott)

‘Once the action kicks off you won’t be able to put it down.’ (Anthony Riches, author of the Empire series)

‘Brown promises to be one of the most exciting sword-wielding writers in an ever-popular arena. In this, his debut, his principal is a 19-year-old fresh-faced officer commanding 100 men in defence of a Syrian stronghold against a vastly superior force. There are echoes of Beau Geste in this death-or-glory stand.’
(The Oxford Times)

Re-write of Franz Kafka: The Meowmorphosis, F. Kafka and C. Coleridge

Peter — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 18:32:24 +0000

"One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into an adorable kitten."

So starts this bold rewrite of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, published by "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" publisher Quirk Books, written by an extremely capable fantasy writer commissioned by Quirk Books to re-imagine the novel as a work of gonzo literature. It could have resulted in a book that simply replaced the word "insect" with "kitten." But it hasn’t. "The Meowmorphosis" is interesting, well told, and delightful.

This is a new mash-up by Quirk, the publisher that sparked the new literary mash-up madness with “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance – Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!
.” Later it has been followed up by titles like Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Wuthering Bites. Back in April 2009, the idea was wholly unique, a surprising recycling of classic literary works available in the public domain. It still seems to be alive and kicking. The books in this new genre sell like candy.

While the initial chapters stick close to Kafka’s well-known novella, the book spirals out of control (in a good way) when Samsa leaves his parents’ home to relieve them of the burden of caring and feeding for such a large, adorable kitten. Samsa’s adventure is both hilarious and horrifying to witness, and takes meta-fiction to dizzying new heights. The new co-writer absolutely nails Kafka’s voice; the new passages integrate so well with the story that it’s hard to believe the book isn’t entirely written by one author.

Co-author Coleridge Cook (a pseudonym for an award-winning fantasy novelist) describes Samsa’s feline behavior in detail, and not a page goes by in which a piece of furniture is not scratched or perched on. Bowls of milk are lapped at, and humans are snuggled with. The book maintains the unsteady paranoia, that creepy feeling that what you’re reading might just as well be a long hallucination as a description of actual events.

It’s a very gutsy move to create a book like this, but I am sure both cat-lovers and lots of other readers will enjoy "The Meowmorphosis" and find Samsa just as cute and cuddly as his sister does in the story. And they will love the story and its excellent style. Recommended!

Don’t Look Twice, by Andrew Gross

Peter — Wed, 25 May 2011 23:47:27 +0000

Don’t Look Twice is the second novel in Andrew Gross’ series featuring Lt. Ty Hauck. Hauck is a good cop, a very persistent and somewhat stubborn investigator and an interesting character. He is also a character more or less devoid of a social life – a workaholic. The first book in the series, The Dark Tide, was good and interesting. So is the sequel.

At the core of Don’t Look Twice lies an interesting mystery: A man is shot dead in a wild shooting in the affluent suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut. Detective Ty Hauck is there when it happens and witnesses the murder. At first it seems like a random shooting. But then, as Hauck takes a closer look, it becomes more complicated. Much more complicated. It turns out that the victim of the shooting was a federal prosecutor, David Sanger. Why was he killed? Was it really random? Or was he working with a sensitive case?

As Ty Hauck digs deeper and deeper into the case, it gets more and more complicated. He uncovers a trail that leads to the gambling industry and into very dangerous territories. As the death toll rises, Hauck is warned to back away from the case. And when that doesn’t work, his house is blown apart by a bomb. But Hauck is nothing if not persistent and stubborn.

Andrew Gross – who has written several books with James Patterson and writes in the Patterson-style – is a good writer and plotter. The characterizations are relatively good – but still a little flat and stereotypical. The story moves fast and there is lots and lots of action. Don’t Look Twice tells an interesting and entertaining story of murder, greed, and corruption. If you like to read James Patterson, it’s well worth a try.

The Snow Tiger, by Desmond Bagley

Peter — Mon, 23 May 2011 00:19:53 +0000

The story in The Snow Tiger, a classic thriller by British thriller master Desmond Bagley, is very fascinating and excellently told. It is a tale of two parts. The first deals with event prior to and leading to an avalanche – a “Snow Tiger”. The second part is about a courtroom government inquiry that takes place following the avalanche. The first is told in the form of flashbacks, the other in real time.

When it happens, the avalanche rips apart a small mining community in New Zealand – a township is destroyed in a few minutes, with more than 50 people killed. In the course of the ensuing enquiry, the antagonisms and fears of the community are laid bare, and a ruthless battle, for control of a multi-million pound international mining group, is exposed. The tension in the courtroom mounts as each survivor gives his graphic account of the terrifying sequence of events.

The protagonist is Ian Ballard, 35 years old, who works as a mine manager. He is the grandson of Ben Ballard, who owns Ballard Holdings Limited, a giant financial group based in London that specializes in mining operations around the world.

During the government inquiry surprising evidence comes to the fore. It indicates that the avalanche may have been deliberately started by a skier. The underlying motive seems to have been to destroy the gold mine and extract revenge on Ian. He is immediately arrested and faces charges for the deaths of several people. As the inquiry deepens, more quite horrifying facts about the disaster surface and the plot tighten.

The Snow Tiger may take fifty or so pages to grab hold of you. But when it does, it is quite suspenseful and entertaining – well written, with characters that feel very live, and lots of action. A great thriller – it should appeal especially to people who enjoy to read legal thrillers such as those by John Grisham. This really is a book that it is hard to put down!

Trust Fund, by Stephen W. Frey

Peter — Mon, 02 May 2011 19:52:51 +0000

Bo Hancock is the youngest son of Connecticut’s most influential family. He is also a financial wizard, a man with excellent training who puts in long days and long weeks, and who has all the right contacts. He heads Warfield Capital, a multi-billion dollar investment firm which is the basis of the family’s wealth. He has made bucket-loads of money for his family’s trust fund.

Bo’s family is always compared to the Kennedy clan. The Hancock family shares the same level of wealth, charisma, and political connections. There are five children in the family, and their father, similar to Joe Sr., holds a taut reign on Paul, Tommy, Catherine, Bo, and Ashley even as he treats his two youngest as changelings.

Paul Hancock has been groomed for a political career, and now he is running for president and with his dad’s backing, will easily win. And Bo, who is making the family money – the man who is making it all possible – is increasingly becoming a liability. He is a money-maker, but also the black sheep of his billionaire family. He likes to party and he is often seen publicly in with the wrong people. When news of Bo’s drinking and philandering reaches the ear of his father, he is exiled to Montana.

Then, when his father becomes ill, he begs Bo to return home and retake control of Warfield Capital even though his siblings prefer he remain in Big Sky country. Bo fights for his position, but soon learns his opponent is an invisible cabal of powerful people who are running the country from behind the scenes. And as members of his family starts to die, it becomes clear that that the battle for the family fortune is a battle for life or death.

Trust Fund is a great Stephen W. Frey thriller. The plot is good enough, the story is a very fast-paced, and overall it is an exciting financial thriller – one of Frey’s best. It’s a book that grabs you early – which usually is a good sign for thrillers. I mostly felt that I could relate to Bo Hancock and I enjoyed reading the book. There is perhaps a little too much conspiracy here, but even so it is a very good financial thriller that I recommend.