Salazar

The Late Greats, Nick Quantrill

Seth Lynch — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:16:26 +0000

The Blurb

Having been convinced by their manager, Kane Major, to put their acrimonious break-up behind them and launch a comeback, New Holland, Hull’s most successful band of the 1990s, is reforming. Allowing one privileged journalist to document the process.
Joe Geraghty is employed to act as a liaison between the different camps. What appears to be a straightforward assignment sees him neck deep in trouble when singer, Greg Tasker, disappears leaving behind a trail of people who wanted him out of their lives.
Geraghty has to choose sides and the investigation penetrates deeper into the city. As the rich and famous rub shoulders with the poor and vulnerable, the stakes increase. Forced to keep his friends close but his enemies’ closer still, the case could see Joe Geraghty lose everything.

My Bit

I read this book over four or five sittings. It would have been one if it weren’t for work, kids, sleep and all that jazz. It felt like the book I wanted to read – which may be the author’s skill or fortuitous timing. I’ll give credit to the author in lieu of any contradictory evidence.

The book is the second to feature the detective Joe Geraghty. I’d prefer to read a series of books in order but I don’t feel I missed anything by reading the second one first. This one read well as a standalone so I can go back and read the first one without it being spoilt for me – although, if Geraghty gets into life threatening peril it’s a safe bet that he lives. However, Geraghty doesn’t get into any life threatening situations in this book – he gets into the more common kind of trouble: and walks around with cuts and bruises as a consequence.

This story has the traditional English detective novel as it’s backbone. There’s a limited pool of suspects – it isn’t a closed room so technically there are an unlimited amount of suspects, but Quantrill plays fair and doesn’t introduce any twin brother’s from Peru– and there is the detective, Geraghty, to solve the crime. We follow Geraghty around as he interviews suspects and finally resolves the case. I can get put off by books like this because I work out who did it very early on. The rest of the book from that point is seeing what extra smoke trails the author lays down. They also tend to have one-dimensional characters and every detail is either a direct clue or a red-herring.

I didn’t get put off reading this book: I got sucked in. Perhaps that was because I wasn’t totally concerned by who did it. The characters were well-developed and the unfolding story was engaging. The band’s manager, the journalist, the Hull gangsters, the cops, the band members – girlfriends wives and would have been wives, they were all convincing portrayals. And so the story of their interactions, their own motivations and lives, was as interesting as the solving of the mystery.

The city of Hull, as a backdrop to the novel, is the real Hull and not an idealised version of a British city. There was one scene where Geraghty is walking alone at night. As I read this I thought: if you did that in Bristol you’d have to avoid the drunks and all the crap that goes on in the city centre when the pubs kick out. No sooner had I thought that when I read this line:
‘I ignored the shouts of the drunks as I walked home, head down in the rain. As I passed a take away, a teenager threw a chip at my head, but I didn’t respond.’
There are no clues in those lines, no details I need to remember, just a well composed sketch of a city after dark.

The best thing about reading the second book first is that I don’t have to wait for the next one to come out. Whenever I want it Broken Dream is right there on the shelf at Amazon.

There’s an interview with Nick Quantrill over at Patti Abbott’s blog. In it he talks about how he came to writhe The Late Greats.

You can read another review on the Paul D. Brazill’s blog. Don’t tire yourself out reading hundreds of reviews – go and read the book instead, it’s well worth the effort.

I read the Kindle edition: The Late Greats, Nick Quantrill
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 464 KB
Print Length: 268 pages
Publisher: Caffeine Nights Publishing (17 Mar 2012)
ASIN: B007M2GFEE

You can also get it in paperback: The Late Greats, Nick Quantrill
Paperback: 268 pages
Publisher: Caffeine Nights Publishing (19 Mar 2012)
ISBN-10: 1907565183
ISBN-13: 978-1907565182

Snapshots, Paul D. Brazill

Seth Lynch — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:25:12 +0000

The Blurb

Twenty-one short, sharp snapshots of the dark side of life, as seen through Paul D. Brazill’s booze and blood splattered, chiaroscuro lens.

Seeing Blue
Thicker Than Blood
Warsaw by Night
Warsaw Ghosts
Late Night Film
Everybody Loves Somebody, Sometime
The Gift That Keeps On Giving
The Endless Sleep
White Ink
In The (Reservoir) Dog House
Donkey
The Four Horsemen
Things To Do In Deptford When You’re Dead
Life On Mars?
Snapshots
The Sharpest Tools In The Box
A Can Short Of A Six Pack
And May All Your Christmases Be White
Guns Of Brixton
The Night Watchman
The Lady and The Gimp

My Bit

I like these stories – there’s a large cross-over from Brit Grit, which is no longer available. I did recommend you buy that book – if you didn’t, for whatever petulant reason you may have had, then buy this one. It cost 77p on Amazon.

There are some who turn their noses up at cheap books. I’ll tell you now that price is not a signifier of quality. No doubt if you were to measure the total quality of every book selling for less than two-pounds against the total quality of every book above that threshold the higher priced books would win out. If you did all your book buying based on that cut off you’d end up with some real stinkers and you’d miss out on books like this. If you buy this book, read it, and decide that your 77 pence could have been better spent elsewhere then walk away now, for you are an ape.

The humour is the thing which stands out most for me. A very dark humour lingers below the one liners and the smart repartee. You laugh and then wonder why – because death is not funny and neither is eating murder victims – then you stop wondering and read on. There is also the ease – this man, Paul D. Brazill makes it look easy. He’s the Velvet Underground of short noir. Who will read this book without picking up a pen and trying to emulate him. Trying and, unfortunately, failing (err, not me).

Paul D. Brazill has his own blog here: You Would Say That, Wouldn’t You? He can be found on twitter here: @PaulDBrazill

Snapshots, Paul D. Brazill
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 197 KB
Publisher: PULP METAL FICTION (16 Mar 2012)
Language English
ASIN: B007LPVV1E

Review: Scale of Justice, Dani Amore

Seth Lynch — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 09:02:43 +0000

The Blurb

Detroit crime boss Diego Villanueva must meet the demands of his Colombian overlords in order to retire to sunny Florida. To help him meet that challenge, he enlists the services of Tomas Sariagmo, whose son was caught stealing from Villanueva. Sariagmo must help Villanueva succeed or both he and his son die. Scale of Justice is an explosive, violent short story from bestselling crime novelist Dani Amore.

My Bit

There is a lot of humour along with violence and vengeance in this short story. There’s also a nice twist at the end. Dani Amore has a twisted imagination, you may not want her as a babysitter, but as a writer of Noir she’s spot on.

Dani Amore is on Twitter : @AuthorDaniAmore

Scale of Justice is 77p on Amazon UK – Kindle Edition

Scale of Justice, Dani Amore
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 122 KB
Print Length: 28 pages
Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
Language English
ASIN: B006F1PJMM

Review: Life, Keith Richards

Seth Lynch — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 22:43:32 +0000

The Blurb

With the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created the riffs, the lyrics and the songs that roused the world, and over four decades he lived the original rock and roll life: taking the chances he wanted, speaking his mind, and making it all work in a way that no one before him had ever done. Now, at last, the man himself tells us the story of life in the crossfire hurricane. And what a life. Listening obsessively to Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records as a child in post-war Kent. Learning guitar and forming a band with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones. The Rolling Stones’ first fame and success as a bad-boy band. The notorious Redlands drug bust and subsequent series of confrontations with a nervous establishment that led to his enduring image as outlaw and folk hero. Creating immortal riffs such as the ones in ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ and ‘Street Fighting Man’ and ‘Honky Tonk Women’. Falling in love with Anita Pallenberg and the death of Brian Jones. Tax exile in France, wildfire tours of the US, ‘Exile on Main Street’ and ‘Some Girls’. Ever increasing fame, isolation and addiction. Falling in love with Patti Hansen. Estrangement from Mick Jagger and subsequent reconciliation. Solo albums and performances with his band the Xpensive Winos. Marriage, family and the road that goes on for ever. In a voice that is uniquely and intimately his own, with the disarming honesty that has always been his trademark, Keith Richard brings us the essential life story of our times.

My Bit

I listened to the audio version of this book. It was very well read by Johnny Depp, Joe Hurley and Keef himself. It was helped by my having to make a few trips back to The West Country – 9 hour round trips on my own. I was able to switch off an go into the story.

I’ve previously read a couple of Brian Jones biographies where Richards is painted as the bad guy. This was mainly for stealing Anita Pallenburg and in one for some how instigating Jones’ murder. Richards’ take on it: it’s possible Brian annoyed the fuck out of the builders that one of them held him under the water – but it would have been manslaughter not murder.

The story got a little less interesting as time went on. I suspect because Keith’s like got less interesting as time went on. As a young man, learning the guitar, living in poverty, forming the band, becoming famous – these are interesting and new. Even up to the 70′s, tours of America and drug busts are interesting. The later part was about recording albums, who wrote what, Mick becoming an arsehole, and Keith’s obsessive behaviour over food.

Having said that, he’s an interesting enough person to keep me listening. During the course of the book he talks a lot about guitar playing – it is his job after-all. I found myself retuning my guitar to open-G to play Brown Sugar and open-D for You Got the Silver. I listened to Let it Bleed a lot over and over. Books that inspire you to do something, even if it is to repetitively listen to an album, are a grade above. They have caused that transportation or inspiration which makes live interesting, enjoyable even.

I think this book will have worked better as an audio book. Joe Hurley, in particular, was very good at making you feel you were in a bar talking with Keith Richards. Or at least at a bar with Keith Richards talking at you non-stop for 24 hours. Actually, when put like that it was a very good book. It may have waned a little but 24 hours of non-stop talk and it was still listenable at the end, that’s an achievement.

Life, Keith Richards.
Audio CD
Publisher: Orion; Unabridged edition (11 Nov 2010)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1409124746

Bullets for a Ballot, Nik Morton

Seth Lynch — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 22:39:09 +0000

The Blurb

In the town of Bear Pines, Mrs. Tolliver has announced she is running for the mayoral office. She’s the first woman to run as a candidate which divides the residents and sets the town into a tailspin. U.S. Marshal Cash Laramie is sent in to maintain peace and order and to protect Tolliver and her family from powerful allies of the incumbent, Mayor Nolan. In a bid to force her to quit the race, things turn ugly … and deadly. Surrounded by killers who will stop at nothing to make sure Mrs. Tolliver is not elected, Cash wires Cheyenne for assistance, but will help arrive in time?

My Bit

Unlike many other Laramie and Miles tales, this one doesn’t focus on the bringing back of an outlaw. Cash Laramie is sent out to protect a woman who’s running for mayor. Turns out it’s the same woman Cash had had to protect once before when she was campaigning for votes for women.

We get some of Cash’s back-story here – during that first meeting he kills his first bad-guy and looses his virginity to the widow woman he’s protecting. The hero of the tale is the widow woman herself. A strong independent woman who is perhaps forced along the road she has taken be circumstance. We also have a very interesting bad-guy (although that might not be exactly what they are). This is a Cash Laramie tale with Gideon Miles making a timely appearance.

We’ve seen racial prejudice against Gideon Miles in these tales before. This time it’s misogyny’s turn. Where Miles has been able to face down the racists the victim here, the widow woman, finds herself in serious peril. At first it’s pure ignorance driving the men on. Later it goes further, the prejudice is used as an excuse. We find out as the story goes along that there is something more sinister at the heart of the trouble. It’s sad to say that women are still treated in this backwards way in some parts of the world. Sad also that victims of racial prejudice don’t have Gideon Miles’ ability to defend themselves.

I’ve been trying not to give anything away but this is a very exciting tale – with a bitter-sweet ending. David Cranmer has made some seriously good choices in loaning out his characters. Despite having placed them in different hands – and each author producing very different tales – they maintain a consistency of both atmosphere and character. These books could have been written by the same person while benefitting from the Third Mind William Burroughs used to talk about – the something else you get when two people work on a project, something which neither of them bring to it directly.

This book (as of March 2012) is selling for 77p on Amazon UK. In fact you could get the 2 volumes plus the three stand alones for less than £5. You could lose £5 on your way home and not feel too bad about. A bit miffed but it’s not the end of the world. Lose £5 on these tales and you get back than £5 worth of writing– you’re quids in, go buy!

Bullets for a Ballot, Nik Morton
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 233 KB
Publisher: BEAT to a PULP (1 Mar 2012)
Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
Language English
ASIN: B007GE8HCG

Review: A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle That Shaped the Middle East, by James Barr

Seth Lynch — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:28:19 +0000

The Blurb

In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, two men secretly agreed to divide the Middle East between them. Sir Mark Sykes was a visionary politician; François Georges-Picot a diplomat with a grudge. The deal they struck, which was designed to relieve tensions that threatened to engulf the Entente Cordiale, drew a line in the sand from the Mediterranean to the Persian frontier. Territory north of that stark line would go to France; land south of it, to Britain. The creation of Britain’s ‘mandates’ of Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq, and France’s in Lebanon and Syria, made the two powers uneasy neighbours for the following thirty years.

Through a stellar cast of politicians, diplomats, spies and soldiers, including T. E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, Barr vividly tells the story of the short but crucial era when Britain and France ruled the Middle East. It explains exactly how the old antagonism between these two powers inflamed the more familiar modern rivalry between the Arabs and the Jews, and ultimately led to war between the British and French in 1941 and between the Arabs and Jews in 1948.

In 1946, after many years of intrigue and espionage, Britain succeeded in ousting France from Lebanon and Syria, and hoped that, having done so, it would be able to cling on to Palestine. Using newly declassified papers from the British and French archives, James Barr brings this clandestine struggle back to life, and reveals, for the first time, the stunning way in which the French finally got their revenge.

The Review

The blurb above gives you a good all-round picture of the scope of this book. The first thing I should point out is that this book reads like a well written novel. Any history book holds the possibility of killing a subject with a dry regurgitation of facts. The skill lies in presenting them in such a way as to make them interesting, relevant, and memorable. James Barr has achieved this with consummate ease. I don’t say that lightly – I’ve always read quite a lot of history books and some of them tried to write in a novelistic way and failed miserably. They tend to indulge two serious errors: they get too flowery, using a lot of adjectives and pointless description; they write as if the historical figures are characters in a book – and so start telling us what they were thinking (without and evidence to back it up) Many’s the history book I’ve flung across the room after a few pages of twaddle like that. Anyway, I only mention it because this book reads like a novel – but in the good ways. Barr does not claim to know what a character was thinking – unless there is a diary or letter to back it up. He does not sink into the mire of purple prose. He keeps it moving. He kept me interested.

This was a little like one of those crime novels where we know who dies and we just want to find out who did it and why. There must have been countless points where it could have turned out differently. Moments in history where the Middle East could have developed into a peacefully place – even with a Jewish homeland integrated there somewhere. For that to have happened there would have had to have been no oil and no Suez. Even with the British holding on to Suez it might have been OK – had the British politians really been interested in peace and the handover of power. However, once oil entered the equation there never was going to be a peaceful solution. The British of the time played the part of the modern day Americans: lots of talk about liberty and self-determination but only if that meant getting or keeping the oil. There were one or two noble figures along the way, along with a few sad victims. Like today the real victims are the people who live in war torn lands because the people around them want more; more land, status, oil, power…

If you are interested in this period of history or this region you should buy this book (or borrow it from the library). If you want to get an idea of why there are so many problems in the Middle East today – read this book. The period covers the incubation, birth and nursery of the present day struggles. It feels impartial, perhaps with a very slight English bias. You don’t need any prior knowledge (I didn’t really have any) and the book is pretty much jargon free. It is also an entertaining read.

Barr has written another book: Setting the Desert on Fire: T.E. Lawrence and Britain’s Secret War in Arabia, 1916-18 which is now on my Amazon wish list (I’m a bit skint at the moment else I’d have bought it already.
If you are reading this Mr. Barr, James, would you mind writing a book about France in the 1930′s. The one’s I have got are rather dry and exceedingly stuffy and I would so like to read an interesting one.

James Barr is on twitter as @James_Barr he also has a web site: http://www.jamesbarr.org.uk. This book was published by Simon and Schuster who kindly sent me this copy to review. I am on Twitter too as @sethlynch

A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle That Shaped the Middle East, James Barr
Hardcover: 464 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd (4 Aug 2011)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1847374530
ISBN-13: 978-1847374530
Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.2 x 4 cm

Review: Miles to Little Ridge and Manhunter’s Mountain

Seth Lynch — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 21:13:52 +0000

Miles to Little Ridge

The Blurb

Edward A. Grainger’s Gideon Miles hits the trail in this fast-clip western novella written by Heath Lowrance. The U.S. Marshal finds himself in the sleepy town of Little Ridge, Montana, on the search for a wanted man. But just as Miles enters town, he’s spotted by a hard case who recognizes Miles as the lawman that killed his friend. Now Miles must face the wanted man, who claims his innocence and is raising a daughter on his own, while the hard case and a ne’er-do-well partner are gunning for him.

The Review

This is a short tale about Gideon Miles riding out to a frontier town to bring back a wanted man. I like the way this one plays. Miles encounters some serious bad cases – along with out-and-out racists. Miles handles it all: the Sheriff who calls him ‘boy’, the outlaws who happen to spot him and want revenge, the restaurant owner who doesn’t want blacks in his place. I don’t want to spoil the story by going into detail but I did like the way the outlaws were with each other: especially at the end. That was a nice touch.

Lowrance uses this story to demonstrate Miles’ integrity. It’s Old School integrity, where a man will obey the law he has sworn to uphold despite not agreeing with it. You get the feeling with Gideon Miles that, had he been born white, he might have become a lawyer before going on to a State Governorship somewhere. Miles is out there because he is black. Being a fast-draw and handy with a knife allows him to survive. He’s a loyal friend and a reliable man. Cash has an element of the unpredictable – as shown in the story Michelle from The Adventure’s of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles. This gives him the edge over Miles.

Miles to Little Ridge, Heath Lowrance
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 106 KB
Publisher: BEAT to a PULP (9 Dec 2011)
Language English
ASIN: B006K5QR88

Manhunter’s Mountain

The Blurb

Manhunter’s Mountain shows a powerful side to Cash Laramie as he makes his way down the side of a mountain with a prisoner in tow, and two prostitutes eager to flee a mining town that’s gone bust, looking to make a new life for themselves. An early winter storm promises to make the journey more than a normal struggle. And, leaving town with two of its most precious gems, the prostitutes, puts Cash in the crosshairs of an angry gang of men who are willing to keep the women in town … at any cost.

The Review

I’ve already said I prefer the character of Cash to Miles. Just to make it clear this preference has nothing to do with the writing: this preference came out in my reading of Vol1 of the Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles, which all written by Edward A. Grainger. In fairness to Miles he could probably have done all the things Cash did in this novella – except, being black, he might not have made it out of the remote mining town alive.

This novella sees Cash riding into a remote town on the trail of a wanted man. The town is remote, in the mountains, and many trails are closed off by the snow. It’s a gritty and enjoyable tale. There are a fair few moments where it looks like Cash won’t survive the town itself. His escape is made with the town’s two remaining whores (the only women in town): something the town’s folk – rough and ready silver miners – are not too pleased about. A few of them decide they are going to tack Cash down and bring the women back. If that wasn’t bad enough a bounty hunter turns up and he is after the same man Cash has in his custody. Now it looks like Cash Laramie is standing between one of the nastiest bounty hunters around and his bounty. Add to this the mountains in winter and you have the elements of Manhunter’s Mountain. It’s a great little tale – as is Miles From Little Ridge.

Manhunter’s Mountain, Wayne D Dundee
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 200 KB
Publisher: BEAT to a PULP (4 Jan 2012)
Language English
ASIN: B006TMY8TM

Both these books were kindle versions and they are both selling for a lot less than they are worth. Snap them up today.

Review: The Man on the Balcony, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

Seth Lynch — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:17:25 +0000

The Blurb

The third book in the hugely acclaimed Martin Beck series … someone is assaulting and killing young girls in the once-peaceful parks of Stockholm. Detective Inspector Marin Beck has two witnesses: a cold-blooded mugger who won’t say much, and a three-year-old boy who can’t say much. The killer will strike again, and the police are getting nowhere. Can Beck crack the case before time runs out?

The Review

I read this not long after Unwanted. I didn’t realise that the themes were related until after I pulled it off the shelf and decided to read it. If I had I might have gone for something else – I can only stomach so much child killing in a month. Instead I read it over a weekend and “enjoyed” it. The first few pages sent shivers down my spine – not metaphorically but literally. I felt a surge of tingling energy as I read because I knew I was reading something special. This specialness had put me off reading this book – the first two in the series were so good I was afraid they couldn’t keep up the pace. I think I can accept that all ten are going to be in the zone even if they do vary in quality. It’s been a while since I read books one and two so I can’t remember if they did this but there were a few points in this book where the quality dropped. Not a big deal, I’m talking about three or four times where a word annoyed me (eg, he said angrily – where I’d delete angrily). Those trivial points are the only gripes I have about an excellent book.

Martin Beck seems to be in a transitional state during this book. He no longer has his old team around him – although for this case he did work with a few of them. His wife, normally a nagging influence in the background, was hardly there at all. Beck has also been promoted. There were a few pointers back to the previous two books too.

This story is about a child serial killer. The killings are unpleasant and provoke vigilantes to start beating people up in case they are the killer. You get the feel of the fear which haunts the parents of children in the city. You taste the sanctimonious recriminations when another child is killed: how could anyone let their child out when they know a killer is on the prowl? What Sjöwall and Wahlöö portray is a city in the grip of fear. The killer doesn’t is going to kill and if the kids are kept away from the parks he’ll take them from your yards.
There are a lot of other nice touches in this book. The influence of drugs on the youth – while Beck is searching for a man who sexually assaults children, a girl in her late teens offers to sell him photographs of herself naked. Beck assumes this is so she can buy drugs. There are also the people who turn up during the increasing police rides: the people who have no where else to sleep other than a park bench, the mentally ill who roam the streets, the victims outside the scope of the book: a woman found naked and tied up in a flat. These are images flashed across the page in the course of the book. Pictures of a waning society.

If you haven’t read the Martin Beck books yet – start today.

The Man on the Balcony, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Fourth Estate; (Reissue) edition (7 July 2011)
Language English
ISBN-10: 000724293X
ISBN-13: 978-0007242931
Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2 cm

Review: Brit Grit, Paul D. Brazill

Seth Lynch — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:12:24 +0000

The Blurb

Brit Grit is Paul D Brazill’s first flash fiction and short sharp story collection. The no frill tales cast a bleary eye over Britain’s’ grubby underbelly in nine hard-hitting crime stories. The collection includes Guns Of Brixton, which was chosen for The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime 2011.

The Review

I liked reading some modern English noir for a change. I’ve read books like Brighton Rock but the England there is a very foreign place. America produces an abundance of the stuff, some bad some supreme. This was unashamedly English, and I liked it for that.

I liked it for a lot more too. The stories have the feel of gritty realism, laced with a deep sardonic humour. This is Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels crime, fast paced, knowing geezers, neat one-liners (I wouldn’t touch him with Roman Polanski, or any other five-foot Pole). Then they begin to sink in, the realism fades and a surrealism prevails. This is a collection of dark parables where criminals eat their victims and gangsters dress in drag to rob diamond stores. Don’t get me wrong, these aren’t fairy tales, the characters are realistic, flawed, broken people populating a world where hope is only a smash and grab away. These tales, with a small twist and a stretch, could probably be found in the court records. Mostly likely they are found in back-street pubs – a grain of truth mixed in a pint of exaggeration.

The writing itself is compelling – Brazill has had he work published all over the place and it doesn’t surprise me. There’s quality here. Some of these tales were better than others but there were non duds, no fillers.

I got to the end and thought I’d like to read a Brazill novel. Then realised I’d fallen into a trap, he doesn’t need to write a novel any more than Maupassant needed to write one (although he did). Brazill is mastering a different craft – the craft of the short story. A few years ago it was a dying skill: here we have the wool dyer, the roof thatcher and over there the short story writer, ain’t they quaint? Now we have the kindle, the nook, and any number of other eBook devices and with them a renaissance in short story writing. This time last year I’d read few modern short stories (I read Gogol, Maupassant, O Henry, writers from a lot of generations back.) This year I’ve read quiet a few quality collections: Dig Ten Graves and The Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles are both reviewed on this site. I’m most of the way through Beat to a Pulp: Hardboiled and Off the Record.Most of these collections – including this one are 86p on Amazon. Why not give them a try?

There’s a review of this book by Eva Dolan on her blog, Loitering with Intent, and another by Heath Lowrance on his Psycho-Noir blog.

Paul D. Brazill has his own blog here: You Would Say That, Wouldn’t You? He can be found on twitter here: @PaulDBrazill

Brit Grit, Paul D Brazill
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 93 KB
Publisher: Trestle Press (10 Aug 2011)
ASIN: B005GVPDIM

Review: Unwanted, Kristina Ohlsson

Seth Lynch — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 21:40:52 +0000

The Book Blurb

In the middle of a rainy Swedish summer, a little girl is abducted from a crowded train.
Despite hundreds of potential witnesses, no one noticed when the girl was taken. Her mother, left behind at the previous station, alerted the crew immediately. But as the train pulled into Stockholm Central Station, the girl was nowhere to be seen.

To Inspector Alex Recht of the Stockholm police, this looks like a classic custody row. But none of the evidence adds up and young Investigative Analyst Fredrika Bergman is convinced the case is far more complex than her boss is prepared to admit.

So when the missing child is found dead in the far north of Sweden, with the word UNWANTED scribbled on her forehead, the rule book is finally thrown out of the window. Now on the trail of a ruthless murderer with a terrifying agenda, will Alex and Fredrika manage to put aside their differences and work together to find the killer, before it’s too late? .

Review

This book starts of like a classic Swedish crime novel in the mould of Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s Martin Beck novels, and Henning Mankell’s Wallander series. It lost a lot of this feel early on – because this book does not focus on a solitary, depressed, detective, but on a small team. Mainly upon three of the team: Recht and Bergman as mentioned in the blurb and Peder, another member of the team. In this way it is a little more like the original series of The Killing. And there is a sticker on the book which reads “for fans of The Killing.” It also deviates from those other two in that it is not so well written. I feel a bit harsh saying that, this book is not badly written (there are a few parts which could be tidied up) it just hasn’t reached those heights, yet. I have a good feeling that Kristina Ohlsson will improve with each book she writes.

I don’t want to spoil the story beyond the publicity text above, so I won’t give much of the plot away. This is a bleak tale of a killer who kills young children – and babies. It makes for uncomfortable reading in parts. The children are targeted, which means the mothers didn’t stand a chance. The first abduction was engineered so that the mother and child were separated, and the child then abducted for a crowded train. And if she hadn’t been taken then she would have been taken later, perhaps when playing in the park – or at any time when the opportunity arose. And then we see some of the parent’s grief – although not to the extent of The Killing.

I couldn’t have read the book if it dwelt too much on the abductions – I have two young daughters and it is left me feeling panicky. Instead we focus on the three main detectives – with occasional scenes from other points of view: including the killers accomplice, and another detective. Fredrika Bergman is a female and a civilian, which makes her unpopular. She is also an intellectual, the final nail in her coffin at work. Because she is different she sees the case differently. The routine and experience which allows the elder male detectives to do their jobs well is of no help here – children are normally abducted by someone close to them. They are not normally the targets of a serial killer.

The characters are well-developed, although I could have done without some of that development. Bergman is thinking about adopting, which would make her a single parent. She is in a relationship with a married man who won’t leave his wife and doesn’t want children. Peder’s marriage is breaking down and his has a mentally handicapped brother. Recht’s family is almost on the level but he has a wayward son who has emigrated to Colombia and not been seen since. Not every character needs a dysfunctional background – I think everyone in this book has one. Sometimes the ordinary, balanced family, can make for drama in unusual situations like working on a case such as this one. It doesn’t need the added dimension of x,y or z. This would have also worked well as a balance to the other character’s home life. Given what we got, it does work well. The main focus is Bergman and although not wholly sympathetic I was on her side throughout. Peder was handled well. He came across as a bigot and misogynist at first. Although he may have still been so by the end we’d seen enough of his other sides that it was toned down and he gained some sympathy along the way. It would have been easy for Ohlsson to have played Peder as a straight villain – the foil to Bergman’s hero. She didn’t do that, although she let us think she would – which is a nice touch.

There were a few annoying niggles in the text. There were a few paragraphs were almost the same line was repeated. There were a few lines like “he said angrily” which began to grate on my a bit. There were also some well handled sections. The Mother of the abducted child had not been overly helpful with one aspect of the case. Fredrika Bergman goes to visit her, angry that her holding back may have delayed finding the killer. She plans to have a real go at her until the mother answers the door:
“Sara opened the door at Fredrika’s second ring. She looked pale and haggard, with such dark rings under her bloodshot eyes that all Fredrika’s anger and frustration melted away…This was a woman who had just experienced her worst nightmare in real life. Criticism had very little place here.”

All in all I liked this book – and I’ll be looking out for the next book in the series.

Unwanted, Kristina Ohlsson
Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd (29 Sep 2011)
ISBN-10: 1847379591
ISBN-13: 978-1847379597