Catch Up on Reviews: Harris, Simenon, Libby, Spark

CARI MORA
Thomas Harris

I was really excited about a new book from Harris. His best work is hypnotic and even books of his that others have disparaged, I have greatly enjoyed (though I would have loved to see an editor push him through one more reqrite of the climactic scene of Hannibal Rising). Much of this novel is fascinating and exciting. I could have done without the constant reminders of how attractice the main character is, but her background as a child soldier was gripping and tragic. The primary antagonist, Hans-Peter Schneider, was singular and repulsive in a particularly interesting way and there were all the elements of international crime to keep the plates spinning and the tension taut. As many have mentioned, however, it all feels a bit thinly sketched. I would have loved to see a lot more of this world. The inclusion of a chapter of Red Dragon at the end just made me want to re-read that immediately. The book is gorgeous but since Penguin is doubling down on publishing and promoting fascists and anti-Semites, I don’t plan to throw money their way any time soon.

MAIGRET AND THE GOOD PEOPLE OF MONTPARNASSE
Georges Simenon

Penguin book, too, but as I found it on the shelf at the pub, I didn’t hand any money to them. A particularly good shelf that day, where I had to choose between a few good choices. I am slowly acquainting myself with the Simenon catalogue, though I think there’s something essentially Gallic missing from my sensibilities. I can appreciate Simenon without really liking him. Maybe — after listening to Andy Lawrence talk about them — I need to try some of the romans dur instead. I did enjoy the first part of the biography of the writer, but had to return it to the library when I changed countries again. Shall have to get back to that. I enjoyed this; Simenon’s style is without artifice. I always learn from reading him.

LIBBY
Milt Machlin

I have been obsessing on Libby Holman for a while now. The tragic torch singer inspired the theme song for LOVE IS A GRIFT and the film that we used in the music video. Holman was a huge star on stage, lived life to the fullest, but everything started to go wrong when she married the spoiled heir to a tobacco fortune. He shot himself but local prejudice and anti-Semitism led to Libby being charged with murder (despite her husband having a long history of suicidal tendencies and raging alcoholism). They finally give up on the trial, but from that day things seem to go south. She never quite gets her career back on track and people around her seem to die at an alarming rate — including her bizarre and needy later relationship, Montgomery Clift — and her own sad end. But she left her estate to Connecticut where its natural beauty can be shared by all. Kind of a trashy bio, but a quick read.

SYMPOSIUM
Muriel Spark

I can end on a high note: my god, Spark is a wonder. Is there anyone who can skewer quite so deftly as she? Who can whip together murder, Scots border ballads, eccentric relatives and snarky suburbanites with apparent effortlessness? Margaret worries she has the evil eye, Uncle Magnus has a purple tie, the painter would quite like to paint and not have dinner parties, the mother of the groom wants to give them a Monet even though she rather hates the bride and what’s really up with the servant and his very expensive watch. This is the kind of book where all the unexpected pieces fit together so neatly that when you finish it, it is tempting to re-read it immediately to relish the pleasure of it all. Clever, but not in the way that people usually mean that. Delightful is a better word. Savagely so. Laugh out loud funny, too.

Love is a Grift @foxspiritbooks

Here’s the official page at Fox Spirit: you can buy the ebook direct! The shiny print edition is out tomorrow…

And don’t forget the slinky theme song by Victoria Squid! Champagne and whisky…

AND you can get this sweet cover on a t-shirt thanks to artist S. L. Johnson.

Out Now: Satan’s Sorority

Those devilish girls of Sigma Tau Nu —

There’s simply nothing they wouldn’t do!

Get this pulpy fun now for just 99p! Drop by Fahrenheit Press for all the cool books and merch.

A smart, witty and marvelously well written slice of pulp fiction. Full of great lines and clever asides, Satan’s Sorority is another winner from Fahrenheit 13.”  -Paul Brazill (author of Guns of Brixton and Cold London Blues) 

“Wynd delivers the usual excellence in Satan’s Sorority. The hopes and dreams of college life distilled brilliantly into devil worship, orgies and murder, deftly handled by the order to leave the readers thinking ‘damn, I really picked the wrong University’. I think what I love most about this book is that Wynd still manages to capture the hope, excitement and frustration of being away from home at last! Indeed as dark as the subject matter is, the tone implies this should not be considered out of the ordinary for our life experiences. Therein lies the genius of Graham Wynd, the ability to make the reader think ‘I wonder who was doing this at my University and why wasn’t it me?’”  -Adele Wearing (Fox Spirit Books)

“Having read some of Wynd’s shorter fiction I had a good idea what to expect. I wasn’t disappointed.  Dark humour, the occult, loss of innocence and sex are all themes that featured strongly in this novella. Wynd has well developed, intelligent and believable characters. The flow of the story is perfectly paced with no overly verbose passages which made all the action and tension so much more effective. The novella is not for the faint of heart with a couple of quite graphic scenes and sexual references, but these are neither gratuitous or overdone. I read through the quickly – a sure sign that it’s a thumping good read. Top marks here, Wynd is a talent I’d love to read more from.”  – Darren Sant (author of The Bank Manager and the Bumand Tales from the Longcroft)

“A refreshing change… For those more learned than me there are plenty of literary and occult references in this story.  Putting a twist on Goethe’s famous character by making it female was interesting and also made the ending more surprising.  I enjoyed the ending, even if it was more of a beginning. Sometimes when I read a book I find a single line sums it up perfectly. The poets often claimed that death wore a mask, but they never said it wore a sorority pin. Not yet anyway.”  -Tony Lane

Bill is Dead #FallFriday #FridayFlash

An oldie that mashes up the odd Fall lyric, Peter Cook ramblings and a little Dud:

‘Bill is Dead’ at Pulp Metal Magazine

Song for a Saturday: Petty (Thief) Lout – The Fall

Suburbia holds more than you care for…

Copped It @ A Twist of Noir

My little tale of a heist gone wrong is over at the brand-spanking-new A Twist of Noir. We’re all glad to see ATON back sharing stories — and surprise, I’m following on the heels of Mr B, who’s got a fine little black diamond, ‘Things I Used to Like’ (and he gets to be #007, too). You won’t be surprised to find ‘Copped It’ is another title stolen from The Fall. I can’t help being inspired: originality is overrated anyway 😉 besides, you might catch a few other references in the tale.

Thanks, Chris!

Review: Too Many Crooks by Paul D. Brazill

Too Many Crooks
Paul D. Brazill
Near to the Knuckle Novella #7

I’m pretty much an easy mark when it comes to Mr B, as you’re doubtless already aware if you’ve read my enthusiastic reviews for his other publications. But I love writers I can count on (see also Liz Hand, the Abbotts, Tess Makovesky and some others I could name but why inflate all those egos?).

Too Many Crooks hits some of the familiar territory: colourful low lifes spread across Europe from Britain to Poland and points in between, salty language, implausible schemes and cataclysmic coincidences. It also has callbacks to other tales he’s written (fun if you know them, interesting hooks if you don’t).

But there’s something more in the wild kinetic machinations: dare I say a touch of the poetic? A lot of mad laugh out loud moments — the Mad Jaffa Cake Eater, a pruney face was so lived in squatters wouldn’t stay there, a Slippery Pole — and a whole bunch of references to classic punk tunes and venerable comedies, not to mention Fall lyrics.

You’d expect no less than offhand Carry On lines and knowing music choices for every mood. There’s a lot more, too:

He was also the world’s leading authority on the Klingon language, apparently and used speaking in Klingon as part of his radical therapy. Hattie had told him she wasn’t interested and had never seen Star Wars and he’d glared at her.

“If you haven’t made a fool of yourself at least once in your life, you haven’t lived,” said Anna.
“Oh, well, if that’s true, I’ve lived more lives than a cat, then,” said McGuffin.

He watched Leslie leave the café and put up her umbrella, which flapped in the wind like a black crow.

He was hungover from a bad dream, or maybe a bad life.

The old grandfather clock had just struck thirteen.

Obviously I could go on and on. Just the audacity of naming a primary character McGuffin (snort!). Get it. You need the laughs. Because all orange clowns should be fictional.

Out Now: You Left Your Biscuit Behind

OUT NOW!

As Aunty Fox says:

Our first crime themed anthology featuring crime, fantasy, horror, humour and baked goods. It’s basically just like one of our events.

10 stories, by ten authors, all with a crime at their heart, some of them with biscuits. Whether that is the stories or the authors I leave to you.

Contents
Elf Prefix by Graham Wynd
Between Love and Hat by Jay Eales
Ghost Signals by James Bennett
No Mercy by K.D. Kinchen
That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles by Penny Jones
Feeding the Fish by Carol Borden
Mermaids in Cape Town by Mame Diene
Patron by E.J. Davies
The Price of a Biscuit by Kate Coe
The Princess, The Pekingese and the Ivory Box by R.A. Kennedy

Buy You Left Your Biscuit Behind / Amazon.com

Review: Cold London Blues

COLD LONDON BLUES
Paul D. Brazill
Caffeine Nights Press

I know: you’ll be shocked to hear that I loved this. I’ve been champing the bit waiting for this book to drop because there are few writers who genuinely entertain as much as Brazill. And this is no exception.

If you’ve read Guns of Brixton, you’ll recognise some of the folks here. The tune has changed from the Clash to the inimitable Vic Godard and this offers the chance to slip in a little — dare I say it? — poetry between the mayhem. There’s a confidence here that allows some audacity. The first line: ‘The morning that Father Tim Cook killed Aldo Calvino the air tasted like lead and the sky was gun-metal grey.’ Mood and mayhem plonk down on a bar stool next to you. You’re not going anywhere until you find out how it all shakes out.

As always it’s laugh out loud funny between bouts of wincingly painful chaos brought on by characters who are as unlikely as they are vivid: gangsters who are feeling their age, hitmen who miss, hoods who want to go straight, and an actor so far up his own arse he thinks he’s god — or maybe just Batman.

I love the expansion of the Brazill world: both the London stories and the Seatown tales feed into the history of Cold London Blues. You don’t need to have read all his other books but it helps. There’s a mad world of lowlifes, cops and random walk-ons — no innocents though. Everyone has their demons — but they’ve got music too.

And I love the idea of the Roman Dalton P.I. series: TV people, make it so!

Some quotes (I’ll try not to post everything): just go buy it now.

A face so lived-in squatters wouldn’t stay there, as his old gran would have said.

Tim wasn’t sure when it was that domestic drudgery like cooking and gardening had become elevated to the level of the works of Beethoven and Chaucer but it was another sign of what was wrong with the modern world, the country.

‘Consistency is the city hobgoblin of little minds.’

‘If you gaze into the abyss’ said Marty, with a lop-sided smirk. ‘The abyss also gazes … and sometimes winks at you and blows you a kiss.’

The winter night bit like a savage beast.

A murder of crows scattered and sliced across the white moon, as the purr of an approaching Mercedes grew to a roar.

‘I blame America for it … well, I blame America for everything …The United States of America is a cancer. A poisonous virus that has fatally infected its host’…‘They say you shouldn’t make your home on an Indian burial ground but when you think about it, the whole of the United States is a bleedin Indian burial ground. Think about it.’

Marty hated high places. He got vertigo in thick socks.

Review: The Neon Moon

The Neon Moon
A Roman Dalton Anthology
Ed. Paul D. Brazill
Blackwitch Press

Another fistful of fun from Blackwitch Press. A bunch of terrific writers run away with Paul D. Brazill‘s werewolf detective Roman Dalton and the dark madness of The City. Matt Hilton brings ‘Booze and Ooze’ while Vincent Zandri takes on ‘Full Moonlight’. ‘Chances Are’ you’ll enjoy Carrie Clevenger’s fresh take on the old cop tale. Ponzi schemes from JJ Toner, darkness from Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw and wild times from Chris Rhatigan, Ben Sobieck and Ben Lelièvre. The lad himself rounds out the collection with ‘The Brain Salad Murders.’ Spend a night with the werewolf detective and you’ll never be the same again — and who’d want to be?

Na zdrowia!