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7) The Tourist, by Olen Steinhauer
8) The Nearest Exit, by Olen Steinhauer
9) The Death of Grass, by John Christopher
10) An American Spy, by Olen Steinhauer
11) Soft Target, by Stephen Hunter
12) Leviathan Wakes, by James S A Corey
After a couple of false starts (extended library loans, being given the paperback) I finally made headway with Olen Steinhauer's The Tourist, which had piqued my interest in 2009 when it was both longlisted for the CWA Steel Daggers and recommended by Stephen King as an essential summer read. The hero, Milo Weaver, works for an off-the-books US intelligence agency, the Department of Tourism, and his criss-crossing of various European capitals and transport hubs has the agreeable flavour of the Matt Damon Bourne film franchise - a key difference being that Milo has a wife and daughter back home.
The comparisons with le Carre are more accurate I think when applied to The Nearest Exit, and An American Spy opens with a lengthy section from the point of view of Xin Zhu, the Karla analogue of the sequence. The Nearest Exit builds to an unforgettable scene of blue lights winking out of existence on a map ; An American Spy has violent reprisal but also compelling sequences inside the committee rooms of the Chinese intelligence service. Engrossing stuff.
The Death of Grass I read in one sitting, for the first time in over twenty years.
Soft Target is the most execrable thing I've come across since I started keeping track of my reading; a Die-Hard-in-a-mall scenario that ends with the villain cornered in the mall's local multiplex making his last stand as Die Hard runs through the projector.
Leviathan Awakes is another bang-on recommendation courtesy of Jo Walton ; "the best seventies SF novel I'd read in simply ages".
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1) Edge, by Jeffery Deaver
2) Satori, by Don Winslow
3) Strip, by Thomas Perry
4) The Dogs of Rome, by Conor Fitzgerald (New Blood, longlisted)
5) The Drop, by Michael Connelly
6) The Fifth Witness, by Michael Connelly
Jeffery Deaver's most recent effort is set in the world of witness protection ; I was hoping for something as taut and as well researched as a Greg Rucka or a Michael Connelly, but Edge can't sustain the trick of verisimilitude as well as the reversals/reveals that are Deaver's stock in trade. Disappointing after Carte Blanche.
Don Winslow's licensed prequel to Trevanian's Shibumi (which I haven't read) is an enjoyable 1950s Cold War thriller set mainly in Beijing and Vietnam ; the travelogue sections reminded me of how much I enjoyed Lionel Davidson's The Rose of Tibet. Pure pulp, but the author's enjoyment at getting to play in Trevanian's sandbox comes over well enough. Shame about the inclusion of de Lhandes, a Trevanian original character, a libidinous and prolix dwarf, who bored me stupid every time he appeared.
Thomas Perry is an author I hadn't read before ; the Los Angeles set Strip is an entertainment not a million miles away from Elmore Leonard, with dumb criminals, a world weary crime kingpin and a bigamous police officer chasing them down. Diverting but suffers from an 'is that it?' ending.
The Dogs of Rome is an impressive debut whose lead character, Commissario Alec Blume, is endearingly laconic, shrewd and fallible. The blend of organised crime, police corruption and politics isn't overworked, and the technicalities of Italian criminal investigation procedures are conveyed skilfully without resort to clunking exposition. I thought it refreshing that everyone Blume interviews - witnesses or victims' relatives - tended to be hostile!
Finally, I've now caught up with both of Michael Connelly's 2011 offerings; The Drop is an assured but minor key Bosch tale, and The Fifth Witness a top drawer courtroom thriller that, along with The Dogs of Rome, have been my most immersive and enthralling reads of 2012 so far.
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21) Savages by Don Winslow (Steel, Longlisted)
22) 11-22-63 by Stephen King
23) Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver
Savages was a complete delight, a hugely enjoyable thriller with a trio of engaging lead characters whose marijuana operation comes to the attention of the Baja cartel. Winslow's pared-down, in the moment prose and expertise with viewpoint characters made this utterly compelling.
If there's any author who is a natural fit for e-publication then it's Stephen King - 800+ pages feel a lot lighter and less daunting on the Sony Reader. Entertaining, sentimental, thought provoking, with half a chapter or so dedicated to a callback to IT which a) was completely self indulgent and b) was a pleasure to read for any long-term King aficionado.
Jeffery Deaver's contemporary Bond reboot works pretty well, and his trademark "it's-not-what-you-think-it-is" corkscrew narrative suits a spy thriller. The gadgets are fun, and surely this the first Bond novel to contain a reference to another British fictional icon:
In this era we’ve become inured to terrible images on television. Scenes appalling to an eyewitness are somehow tame when observed in two dimensions on the medium that brings us Dr Who and advertisements for Ford Mondeos and M&S fashions.
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19) The Cypress House by Michael Koryta (Gold, longlisted)
20) Second Son and The Affair by Lee Child
Keeping up with the Dagger longlists (now since awarded) brought me to a fairly well-established genre writer who I hadn't read before, Michael Koryta. The Cypress House has a paranormal flavour that is reminiscent of Stephen King (specifically The Green Mile with which it shares a Depression era setting). I thought it was excellent - Koryta's control of his narrative is exemplary and the nature of the hero's unwanted supernatural gifts (able to see if men are going to die because their eyes are replaced with smoke, communing with some very unpleasant dead spirits) doesn't diminish the jeopardy.
Since 2004 I've been enjoying each new Jack Reacher novel ahead of publication in audiobook form, thanks to proof copies sent out by the publisher. These (a novella and a novel) mark the end of that tradition. Second Son is Young Reacher, in the vein of Andrew Lane's Young Sherlock Holmes -- it's diverting but doesn't work. (Reacher here has a 40 year old's savviness in the body of a hulking thirteen year old.) The Affair is at its most interesting when Child is having fun with its position as the ur-text of Reacher books -- this is the one where Reacher leaves the Army to become a drifting, modern day knight errant. It's solid, workmanlike, but not as striking as the earlier Reacher-as-MP book The Enemy, or as gripping as previous series entries such as Persuader or 61 Hours.
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| » Undercover shopper |
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The first rule about being a mystery shopper is... you do not talk about being a mystery shopper. But if I had signed up to to be one recently, what would I have learned?
1) Payments are made to (partly) reimburse expenses, along with a payment for reports submitted. Nobody's going to earn a living doing this - but they can enjoy subsidised restaurant meals, get (multiple) free eye tests, learn about dishwashers, mobility scooters, which books Waterstone's might be recommending about a particular subject.
2) All restaurants insist on a 'checkback' so that the diners, when asked "Is everything all right?" during the meal, can either explain that their food is cold or order more drinks. It's like the cue dot in the corner of the TV screen or the reel change mark on a film - once you're aware of it you notice it all the time.
3) Some assignments require a photo to be taken of the location after the visit.
4) It is inadvisable to try and take a photo at 8.20 pm from behind shrubbery of a pizzeria with large windows and views out towards said shrubbery.
5) "Sell more pizza, have more fun!" is a corporate mission statement.
6) You couldn't pay me to visit a clothes shop.
Sep. 1st, 2011 @ 07:29 am
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| » Books read in July / August |
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Inspired by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) nwhyte's diligent reading of the various Hugo nominees, for the foreseeable future (i.e. until I get bored with them) I'll be tackling novels longlisted for this year's Crime Writers Association Dagger Awards. There are three categories - the CWA Gold Dagger for the Best Crime Novel of the Year, the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for the Best Thriller of the Year, and the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger for the Best New Crime Writer of the Year. (The four finalists in each category have been announced since I started my read-a-thon.)
15) The Cobra by Frederick Forsyth (Steel, Longlisted)
16) The Dead Women of Juarez by Sam Hawken (New Blood, Finalist)
17) Snowdrops by A D Miller (Gold Finalist, Booker Prize Longlisted)
18) The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Gold and Steel Finalist)
I read a new Frederick Forsyth every ten years or so, just to see if he will ever get back to the standards he set with The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File, which captured my imagination when I first read them twenty years ago or so. Alas, The Cobra is only notable for a chapter three cameo from a certain Old Etonian PM and his lovely wife, Samantha. Characterisation is either from stock types or non-existent - although the tech spec side (i.e. why a Buccaneer is the perfect plane to mount sorties against drug cartel shipments) is as enthusiastic as ever.
Sam Hawken's book is, by contrast, exactly the sort of thing I'd hope to come across - a vivid debut that transported me to the heat, hard lives and tough choices of Ciudad Juarez. Compelling, brutal and over far too quickly.
The appearance of Snowdrops on the Booker Prize longlist has been put down to the presence of thriller writer Stella Rimington on the panel - although the lists have shared a nominee in the past, Tom Rob Smith's excellent Child 44. The scene is Moscow, roughly ten years ago, as our first person narrator wilfully gets caught up in financial scams professionally and personally. "Hustle" as if written by Martin Cruz Smith.
Everything you always wanted to know about how to become a safe cracker is revealed in Steve Hamilton's book, the main action of which is set ten years ago (perhaps because safes these days are less likely to have dials and tumbler locks.) Steve Hamilton is a practised hand at keeping the pages turning, and there's a double time line used in the storytelling which I'm sure Steven Moffat would enjoy. (I did too.)
Aug. 29th, 2011 @ 08:26 am
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| » Recently watched |
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From Time to Time - Julian Fellowes' adaptation of The Chimneys of Green Knowe, made with the care of somebody who fell in love with the Lucy Boston books as a child. There's an easter egg or two for aficianados of the books (Sheena explained to me the significance of one of the statues in the garden) and the ending is surprisingly bittersweet. Lovely to see Athelhampton House and its gardens being used as effectively as they were in The Seeds of Doom over thirty years ago.
The Killing / Forbrydelsen as good as the hype surrounding it suggested it would be - this was stacked up on the planner for a few weeks so we could devour it, double-bill by double-bill. We both loved the performances, the red herrings, the realpoltik of Copenhagen's municipal government, and the deep bench of sinister Danish actors. And the jumpers, of course. Accept no (Seattle based) substitutes!
Jul. 14th, 2011 @ 10:33 pm
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| » Books read in May / June |
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13) Where the Shadows Lie by Michael Ridpath
14) Robocalypse by Daniel H Wilson
13) An Icelandic set thriller featuring a transplanted US detective, Tolkien correspondence and an antique ring... this has its moments (chapter twelve is a complete-in-itself faux saga, and a very entertaining one) and Ridpath is clearly having fun with lines like "Arni was having trouble locating Elvish speakers in Iceland, especially on a Saturday." It didn't quite work for me - I never really bought in to the detective's backstory, and found the final few chapters a bit of a chore to get through.
14) is a pacy dystopian war story told in bite size chunks that make it ideal to be read as an e-book. Some ingenious ideas, some hand-me-down characterisation, and a feeling throughout of the narrator's impatience to get to the end of the story so that Dreamworks can hurry up and make the movie which this is sure to be one day.
Two books in two months reflects changed circumstances - no more daily commute and new shift patterns in a brand new job.
Jul. 7th, 2011 @ 08:51 am
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| » Co-Op : random notes from the new job |
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1) The price of Calippo ice lollies has hardly changed in the ten years since I last sold them
2) The walk-in fridge and freezer are the same dimensions - probably the same make - as the ones I used in Port Solent
3) Marlboro Lights are the cigarette of the choice in this locale
4) The technology Waterstone's uses to scan returns is modelled on the system supermarkets use to process markdowns on stock due to go out of date
5) Hardly anyone buys the Express, and those that do use a coupon printed in the previous day's paper to pay for it.
The in-store radio is excellent - Radio 2 daytime playlist staples feature heavily, with the occasional left-field choice (only 6Music or XFM I suppose would play Radiohead's Karma Police at 2 pm on a Tuesday afternoon.)
Tracks I've enjoyed this month have included:
1) The Pierces, Glorious
2) Nerina Pallot, Put Your Hands Up
3) Patrick Wolf, House (as Ken Bruce noted, not a million miles away from Nick Lowe's "I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass")
4) Noah and the Whale, Tonight's the Kind of Night (usually gets played at about 9.50 pm I associate it with the imminent end of a shift)
5) Brooke Fraser, Something in the Water
6) Jack Jeremiah, Heart of Stone
7) Sara Bareilles, Uncharted
Jun. 28th, 2011 @ 11:32 am
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