BookGazette

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.

Top Fantasy: The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson

Peter — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 20:59:25 +0000

This thick brick of a book, over 1000 pages long, is the first volume of a series planned to be a ten-book tale called The Stormlight Archive. So the series might well end up around 10.000 pages if Brandon Sanderson sticks to the format of this fist book as far as length is concerned.

However, I have to say already at the outset that if the other books in the series should turn out to be nearly as good as The Way of Kings, I feel quite certain that my attitude to the issue of length is that it is way too short!

The Way of Kings is as monumental and epic as only an outstanding fantasy book can be. Sanderson builds a fabulous, intriguing, mystical new world and takes us on a magical mystery ride. The world is enchanting and rich, the tale involves a large number of characters and the story is brilliantly told.

The book has three main protagonists: Kaladin, Shallan and Dalinar, and a large number of other important characters as well. Shallan is female, the other two are male. Kaladin is the a surgeon’s son who “volunteered” for military service, where he excelled, and was then sold as a slave and forced bridgeman – which in this book is the lowest form of creature you can imagine – essentially fodder for enemy arrows. The work involves carrying siege bridges right up to the scenes of battle in Alethkar’s ongoing war with the Parshendi.

Dalinar is a highborn nobleman and the brother of the late king. In terms of military hierarchy, he exists at the opposite end relative to Kaladin. He is a complex character, and like Kaladin he is concerned – or perhaps plagued is a better word – by deeply felt ethical concerns about the ongoing war and the way that war is wagered. Also, he lives in a society where conflict, competition and treachery is commonplace and increasingly feels that his own position and that of the King (he is the uncle of the current king and very loyal to him) is fragile.

Shallan is a young noble girl from a financially ruined family who wants to become the apprentice of Jasnah, a princess and famed scholar. But Shallan’s motives for seeking this highly desirable position are not what they initially seem. Nor are they very scholarly.

The book is simply magnificent. In my opinion it compares very well with George R. R. Martin’s outstanding series A Song of Ice and Fire. But even so, a word of warning to you if you want to read it (as you really should): More or less by necessity, it takes a while for Brandon Sanderson to set up the universe and make the characters accessible to you. So, as a consequence, it took about 400 pages of reading before the book started to grab hold of me. On the other hand, when it did – when Sanderson had succeeded in sucking me into the story – it kicked me like a mule: I could hardly put the book down at all.

The Way of Kings is a great ride. An excellent start to a promising series and among the best ten fantasy books I have ever read. Just plain marvelous. It blew me away. It’s a book of the kind that gives fans of fantasy fiction burning eyes. I feel very certain that Brandon Sanderson will be ranked up there, along with Tolkien, Martin and Jordan, in a not too distant future. Go buy the book, lean back, read and be entertained and amazed. I highly recommend this book!

Five classic police procedurals – top crime fiction

Peter — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:34:37 +0000

Police procedurals are almost always great to read. Especially when they are very good and written by excellent authors who know how to build suspense. The following five crime fiction novels are among my favorites in this genre. They are all outstanding, each in their own way.

Dance Hall of the Dead (Edgar Award Winner) by Tony Hillerman (1973). Ernesto is missing and there is a pool of blood by his bike. The next day his buddy George runs off. It is up to Sgt. Joe Leaphorn to find the boys before anything happens to them.

As with most of Hillerman’s novels everyone has different agendas and stories that overlap. There are alleged stolen artifacts form and archeological dig, and possibly a drug interest. We also get a good dose of Zuñi culture, and a feel that we are in the area. Hillerman is nice enough to leave sufficient clues to let you figure out the mystery before Leaphorn and you then get to watch as he finally comes around to your way of thinking. Links: Amazon US, Amazon UK
The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo (1992). This is the fourth Martin Beck book in the series of 10 written by Sjøwall & Wahløe. This is one of the highpoints in this excellent series of Swedish police novels. A bus crashes, and it turns out that the driver and all eight passengers have been shot. What can be the purpose of this bizarre and horrific massacre? This book, as well as all the others in the series, has been filmed. Links: Amazon US, Amazon UK
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith (1981, filmed 1983). This is the first in a series of books featuring Arkady Renko. Renko is an honest, dedicated, hard-working Ukrainian cop. When he was Chief Homicide Inspector for the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office, he took charge of a grisly murder case involving the international fur trade. Very quickly, he fell afoul of the KGB. That’s how his troubles began, which pursue him throughout the series of novels.

The later books in the series are Polar Star and Red Square, Havana Bay, and Wolves Eat Dogs. The whole series is great, and highly recommended! Links: Amazon US, Amazon UK
A Thief of Time by Tony Hillerman (1990). (Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Novels) A noted anthropologist vanishes at a moonlit Indian ruin where “thieves of time” ravage sacred ground for profit. When two corpses appear amid stolen goods and bones at an ancient burial site, Navajo Tribal Policemen Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee must plunge into the past to unearth the astonishing truth behind a mystifying series of horrific murders. Links: Amazon US, Amazon UK
The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders (1972) (the first in a series of three books). Sanders’ excellence is demonstrated through the realistic characters he creates. He allows the reader to gain access to the most personal aspects of his two main characters, their thoughts, obsessions and behavior. Police Captain Edward X. Delaney, Commanding Officer of New York City’s 251st Precinct, and Daniel Blank, a young business executive, a mountain climber, who has strange sexual fantasies, are the primary focus of this unique mystery.Some call this book a “psycho-sexual thriller.” Has been filmed, starring Frank Sinatra. Links: Amazon US, Amazon UK

Three excellent Frederick Forsyth thrillers

Peter — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:49:10 +0000

Frederick Forsyth (born 1938 in Ashford, Kent, England) is one of the most successful thriller writers ever. Forsyth eschews psychological complexity in favor of meticulous plotting based on detailed factual research. His books are full of information about the technical details of such subjects as money laundering, gun running, the international narcotics trade and identity theft. His novels sometimes read like investigative journalism in fictional guise. His moral vision is a harsh one: the world is made up of predators and prey, and only the strong survive.

His books are past-paced and very suspenseful. At his best, he really is one of the best thriller writers ever!

The Day of the Jackal (1971), by Frederick Forsyth

The Day of the Jackal (Sjakalen) is a novel about main character is the Jackal, a highly feared and infamous terrorist at the time when this novel was written. The plot of the book is a (fictional) account of an attempt by this terrorist to assassinate the French president Charles de Gaulle.

The Day of the Jackal is very well written and very exciting. The intense style and suspense that sets Forsyth apart as a writer and master of the thriller genre is visible already here in this early book. An extremely worthwhile read! And, yes, the movie with the same name is based on this book!

See also the French TV mini series about the “real” Carlos! Excellent!

The Dogs of War (1974), by Frederick Forsyth

The plot in The Dogs of War is centered on a tycoon that discovers a mountain of platinum in the remote African republic of Zangaro. This discovery causes Sir James Manson, a smooth and very ruthless tycoon, to hire an army of mercenaries to topple the government and replace its dictator with a puppet president. But the situation develops into a terrifying power game. And, of course, as Sunday Mirror wrote: “Enormous and convincing detail, and a shattering climax”.

Again Forsyth discusses material of particular relevance at the time of writing. There were strong rumors at the time, and some evidence too, that with the right contacts and enough money, mercenaries specialized in coups d’etat could be hired to topple governments. Indeed, some rumors even implicated mr. Forsyth in such a plot!

Regardless, The Dogs of War too is a must for any thriller-loving reader! I love reading him.

The Fist of God (1994), by Frederick Forsyth

The Fist of God is written in the aftermath of the first Gulf War. Iraq has designed a new super weapon, the Fist of God, in a highly secret project.

When Iraq invades Kuwait, both the British and Americans need top level intelligence on the ground. Major Mike Martin of the Special Air Service is seconded to SIS to work with the Kuwaiti resistance. Major Martin speaks fluent Arabic. He also looks like an Arab, and speaks the language fluently. His brother, Terry Martin, an academic and expert in Arab military studies, is at the same time asked to advise a joint Anglo-American committee on possible Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Thus the two brothers Martin become the key players in this book.

The Fist of God is one of Forsyth’s best books. The action is fast, the suspense is there most of the time, and the plots are thick. It’s a real page-turner, and a must for thriller fans!