Tim Dorsey - Cadillac Beach

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Amusing and enjoyable

This is an amusing read but not quite as good as the later Serge Storms books, I think.

I came late to this series and have gone back to this earlier stage in Serge’s career. It’s full of utter mayhem and a completely bonkers plot involving stolen diamonds from 1964, the CIA, the FBI, various gangs, Cuban spies and the history of Serge’s grandfather. We also get Serge’s delightful, crazy obsession with the minutiae of Florida’s history and Tim Dorsey’s excellent style.

I did find the whole thing amusing and an enjoyable read (of course!) but I rather prefer the later books where we get Serge’s more focussed and satisfying revenge on the various scumbags and irritants of modern life. Nonetheless, this is well worth reading and recommended.

Alex Pavesi - Eight Detectives

Rating: 2/5

Review:
Disappointing

I’m afraid I’m in a minority in not getting on at all well with Eight Detectives. It’s a very ingenious idea but it’s simply not very well done.

The premise is well described in the publisher’s blurb: a professor of mathematics once worked out the maths of detective stories and wrote some short stories himself. A young editor is sent to meet the author and revise them for publication and finds possibly disturbing clues to an old, unsolved murder.

So far, so enticing. My problem is that I didn’t find it well enough written to hold my attention. The stories themselves aren’t very interesting, are sometimes rather repellent and generally very implausible. The prose creaks and plods more than a little and the descriptions of present day events read in a very similar voice to the stories, which doesn’t help. In addition, the “mathematical rules for a murder mystery” are things like “There must be at least one victim” or “There must be at least two suspects” and that the sets of victim, killer, suspects, and detectives may overlap in different ways. It’s hardly earth-shaking stuff. I’m afraid I decided that life was too short for this, gave up around half way and skimmed to the end. Sadly, I found it just as unrewarding as the rest of what I’d read.

Others have plainly enjoyed this book very much and have found the puzzle engrossing, but I was very disappointed in it and can’t recommend it.

(My thanks to Penguin for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Lawrence Block - Burglars Can't Be Choosers

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very enjoyable

I enjoyed Burglars Can’t Be Choosers very much. It’s an involving read with genuine wit and some real content in places, too.

Written and set in 1977, Bernie Rhodenbarr is a “gentleman burglar” in New York. While burgling an apartment he is first surprised by the police and then by the discovery of a body, recently murdered. The story is then of Bernie trying to find enough evidence to convince the police that he isn’t the killer. It’s a well put-together plot which does require considerable suspension of disbelief – but that’s just fine by me because it’s very well written, very entertaining and has some quite thoughtful moments, too; for example, some speculation about the nature of honesty and integrity when considering a policeman who will cheerfully accept a bribe from someone he considers harmless but would never dream of not sharing it with his partner or failing to keep his word.

There is a moral problem, of course, in accepting the idea of a “gentleman burglar.” Anyone who has been burgled will tell you that it’s not the remotest bit funny or romantic. There are also some rather pre-feminist attitudes and a pretty loose approach to the Sixth Commandment, but it’s all pretty mild compared with a good many 1977 views. Personally, I’m fine with it all in this context; it’s a lighthearted book and I’m prepared to be lighthearted in return.

I’m very much looking forward to reading the rest of this series and I can warmly recommend Burglars Can’t Be Choosers.

Lawrence Block - You Can Call Me Lucky

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Classy and original crime writing

The pattern of these short stories is becoming clearer by the third one: she has sex with a man and then she kills him. It ought to be a bit repellent but Lawrence Bock carries it off with some style and a little wit, so they remain enjoyable. It’s the quality of the writing which keeps me reading this series of short stories and as the protagonist slowly begins to develop a story and a credible character I’m becoming more drawn in.

Best read as part of the full sequence and recommended.

Dov Alfon - A Long Night In Paris

Rating: 4/5

Review:
A great read

I enjoyed A Long Night In Paris very much. It’s not wholly credible, but it’s intelligent and gripping.

The plot is labyrinthine and the story emerges slowly, as it would in a real investigation like this. We get some good insights into how an intelligence service works, plus some convincing portrayals of the machinations in government as politicians seek to protect their privileged positions, shift blame and take unearned credit, and also within the intelligence service as ambitious people put their own interests before all others. I found the unfolding story very involving and the characters just about believable – and I was happy to suspend any disbelief I had in two exceptionally attractive intelligence officers with almost supernatural powers of deduction, bravery and skills. I thought the writing was good and developed a good sense of place and of atmosphere in both Israel and Paris.

This is a cut above the usual action-packed thriller (although there is quite a lot of action) and is happily free of ridiculously implausible Shocking Twists. I thought it was a great read – involving, fun and exciting.

Patrick Ness - Burn

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Complex, subtle and gripping

I thoroughly enjoyed Burn. It is complex, subtle and brilliantly told.

The book is set in 1957 in a world very like ours, but where dragons have existed for centuries and have managed to form an uneasy but lasting truce with humans. Sarah and her father hire a dragon to do some heavy clearance work on their farm in Washington State. He turns out to be far more than a soulless “claw” (the insulting term for dragons used by some humans) and at the same time a fanatical assassin starts his journey toward Sarah who, it turns out, will be a girl in exactly the right time and place to fulfil a prophecy that such a girl will prevent the destruction of the world.

A gripping and excellently told story ensues. It sounds like the rather common use in young people’s literature of a traditional mythical structure: the Light and the Dark with a young mediator on whom the fate of the world depends. Patrick Ness brings more subtlety and complexity to it than this, though. There are shades of good and bad everywhere and he makes excellent and timely points about racism, homophobia and other prejudices. He also gives a fine portrait of the grooming of a fanatic and the dishonesty which lies behind it.

Ness has never shied away from darkness and tragedy and there is certainly some of that here, but there are also fine, human and redemptive themes, some of which are genuinely moving.

When he’s at the top of his game, few can match Patrick Ness in this genre. He is close to the top of his game here and I can recommend Burn very warmly.

(My thanks to Walker Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Lawrence Block - Rude Awakening

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Short but good

There is something rather compelling about these stories. They don’t seem to add up to much really, but they are well-written and have a certain grisly charm to them. This one is very short – it took me about 10 minutes to read – and left me with a feeling I’d like to read the next, somehow.

These stories are also available as a single book: Getting Off.  They are beginning to grow on me and I’m looking forward to the next.

Khurrum Rahman - Ride Or Die

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Another excellent instalment

The first two books in this series were excellent and Khurrum Rahman maintains that standard in Ride Or Die. It is another exciting, very well-written thriller with real moral weight and a continuing insight into the dilemmas and difficulties of a British Muslim confronted with jihadi terrorism. (It’s worth saying that you really need to read the first two to understand fully what is going on here, but that won’t be any hardship whatsoever.)

Following the traumatic events of the previous two books, Jay wants out from MI5 and all that...er...stuff (not exactly the word he would use). However, he is dragged back in by developments and the need to confront his father. An extremely involving and exciting story develops, taking him to places and people he’d much rather not go to in this country, Pakistan and Afghanistan. There are major and unexpected developments both politically and personally, but I won’t reveal any spoilers.

The book is narrated partly by Jay and partly by Imy whom readers will remember from Home Grown Hero. The two voices are excellently done, with Jay’s brash, expletive-strewn, egotistical but human persona contrasting with Imy’s grief-stricken, passionate, restrained voice. The humour of East Of Hounslow has largely gone as Jay’s small-time-drug-dealer past recedes and his life is dominated by the most serious of events and issues, but the serious analysis delivered in his still robust Honslow style is still there and still extremely shrewd and readable.

This remains a really classy and very enjoyable series, of which there is more to come. I’m already looking forward to the next instalment and I can recommend this very warmly indeed.

(My thanks to HQ for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Cara Hunter - No Way Out

Rating: 5/5

Review:
Very good

I agree with the chorus of praise for No Way Out. It’s a very well-written and constructed police procedural with an excellent cast of characters.

This time there is a house fire in which a family dies but the father is missing and Fawley’s team painstakingly unearth a complex story with the usual blind alleys and interesting revelations. It’s very well done: the police actually follow procedure which makes for a gripping and well-paced story, there are unexpected developments but no ludicrously Shocking Twists and the whole thing is involving and believable. The story is told from multiple points of view and with flashbacks which can be a very irritating format, but Cara Hunter pulls it off very well.

I especially like Hunter’s development of her main characters. The police team are a varied bunch, but all of them are credible and well drawn and their personalities and personal lives feel genuine rather than just tacked on, as is rather too often the case in this genre.

I wasn’t bowled over by the first in this series and missed out the second (by mistake). This is the third and for me it is a big step up from Close To Home; it’s probably best to read the books in sequence but this works fine as a stand-alone novel. No Way Out is a really good read which I cam recommend warmly.

Anthony Horowitz - Moonflower Murders

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Good in parts

I’m rather ambivalent about Moonflower Murders. Anthony Horowitz is an excellent writer and parts of this book are very enjoyable, but overall I found it a bit of a slog.

This is the follow-up to The Magpie Murders and again features Susan Ryeland, now an ex-publisher and living in Crete, who again is called on to solve a murder using clues from an Atticus Pund novel, this one which published by her eight years before. A man has been convicted of a horrible killing at a swanky country-house hotel, but a woman who has since disappeared has left a message saying that one of Alan Conway’s books contains the clues to the real murderer.

It’s a classic golden-age set-up which is done very well, and I found the introductory section featuring and narrated by Susan very good. However, the central section of the book is the whole of the Pund mystery, which I found rather dull and hard going. As a pastiche it didn’t grab me in the way some real golden age mysteries do. The final section is Susan’s solution of the mystery which picks up again, but even allowing for the genre is a little over-contrived. It is also somewhat prone to self-congratulation as Horowitz, in the guise of showing how clever Alan Conway’s writing has been, tells us rather insistently how clever he has been. There’s no need for him to do this because he’s so obviously a very skilled and imaginative writer and I found it just a little cringe-inducing.

To be honest, I ended up skimming a good deal of the book-within-a-book. The rest was fun but overall I didn’t enjoy this as much as some of Horowitz’s other work.

(My thanks to Random House, Century for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Lawrence Block - If You Can't Stand The Heat

Rating: 3/5

Review:
A so-so short story

Hmmm. This is a short story which took me about 15 minutes to read. It’s very decently written and certainly readable, but I’m not sure it really had much content above a couple of mild surprises. The predatory female is always a difficult area and I thought this hovered dangerously on the borderline with misogyny.

Lawrence Block was recommended to me, but I’m not sure this was the right place to start. I’ll probably try some more of his books because the writing is good – including the next in the Kit Tolliver series to see where it goes – but this only gets a rather lukewarm recommendation from me.