On October 17, 1961, thousands of Algerians took to the streets of Paris in a peaceful demonstration against a curfew that had been imposed only on them. At the time, Algeria was engaged in a struggle for Independence from France which had long held the nation as a colony. The demonstrators were met with extreme violence from the police who opened fire on them without … Continue reading Murder in Memoriam by Didier Daeninckx
Drive is the best movie I have seen in a long, long time. I loved it so much I watched it twice in a row. And then went out and got the book. The book is very good, but the movie is better. The story concerns a young man who works by day as a stunt driver for movie productions in Los Angeles and by night … Continue reading Drive by James Sallis
Journalist George Stroud is assigned to find a missing man. The missing man is a suspect in the murder of a powerful magazine publisher’s mistress. The missing man was the last person to see her alive. He’s also the only man who knows that the powerful magazine publisher is the real killer. He’s also the journalist George Stroud. How can the journalist escape from himself? … Continue reading The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing
In 1947, an excellent thriller needed only four characters: two women, one a respectable policeman’s wife the other a woman of questionable character, and two men, one a police detective the other a serial killer. With these four characters and a small supporting cast, Dorothy Hughes created an excellent noir thriller In A Lonely Place that can more than hold its own against any of … Continue reading In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
Man, what a ride! Back when the giant “Hollywood” sign still ended in”Land,” Walter Huff, long time agent for a small time Los Angeles insurance company stops at the Nirdlinger home to get Mr. Nirdlinger’s signature on a routine renewal form. Nirdlinger’s wife Phyllis informs Huff that she’s alone. The two quickly begin an affair that ends with a plot to kill Mr. Nirdlinger and … Continue reading Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
Graeme Macrae Burnet brings multiple voices to life in his historical crime thriller His Bloody Project. Give credit where it is due. I was very impressed by how well he evokes various types of writing and by how well they work together. The novel opens with a first person account, written by the accused, a 17-year-old farmer, or crofter, accused of multiple homicide. Just how did young … Continue reading His Blody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet
First off, is this not a beautiful cover? Don’t you want this to be a terrific book? With a cover like this? It wasn’t the book, it was me. Most likely. The books two narratives are well told, it’s two lead characters interesting and three-dimensional. I just felt I had been down this road before. In one, an 19th century American engineer has been hired … Continue reading DNF: Three Weeks in December by Audrey Schulman
This year I’ve been reading all ten of the Martin Beck mystery series by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. All but one. The Laughing Policeman was my first exposure to the Martin Beck Series. I read it back in October of 2009. While I decided not to re-read it, I did think it would be worth my while to re-read my review of it and to … Continue reading The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo
On January 26, 1948, someone posing as a health officer entered the Teikoku Bank in a Tokyo suburb and simultaneously poisoned 16 people, 12 of whom died. After an extensive police investigation, Hirasawa Sadamichi, a tempera painter, was arrested and convicted of the murders. His guilt was immediately called into question. While he was never executed for the murders, he did eventually die in … Continue reading Occupied City by David Peace
Graham Joyce’s novel, The Silent Land, is an entertaining supernatural thriller that delivers the goods. Jake and Zoe Bennett are on a ski vacation in the French alps when both are caught in an early morning avalanche. Fortunately, Jake is able to dig Zoe free from the snow before it’s too late. Having lost their skis, they wait as long as the can for a … Continue reading The Silent Land by Graham Joyce
One of the many reasons for reading literature in translation is the window it can provide onto experiences other than our own, sometimes experiences we never knew existed. The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez provides a window on life among German nationals living in Columbia during the second world war. Because of diplomatic pressure from the United States, the government of Columbia published a list … Continue reading The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez
I can’t quite determine exactly where the narrative tension in Noah Hawley’s Before the Fall comes from, but it’s certainly there–I found the book very hard to put down, even when it was hard to figure out if anything was really happening. While there are multiple stories in Before the Fall, one back-story for each of the passengers on a small, private jet that crashes into the water … Continue reading Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
May Contain Spoilers 