Tuesday 31 March 2015

2 BY ROBERT LITTELL

Like Jon Jackson last week Robert Littell is an author who I have more books by than fingers, despite managing to have never read him.  Most if not all are in the espionage genre.

His first book was published in 1973 – The Defection of A.J. Lewinter and there have been another 17 since.














I am looking forward to his CIA epic - The Company, though at 900-odd pages long I don’t think I’m going to be starting with this one.




Littell turned 80 earlier this year. He was born and raised in New York and spent four years in the US Navy before turning to journalism. He worked for Newsweek during the Cold War and he doesn’t appear to have a website!




 Vicious Circle

An Israeli government minister is assassinated in the home of his mistress. Leading the Palestinian assassination team is Dr. Ishmael al-Shaath, a half-blind Palestinian doctor imprisoned by the Israelis for years for crimes he did not commit. Days later, Elihu, an aging and decorated Mossad officer, leads his final raid, killing a Hamas leader in his bed--and barely escaping with his life.

Out of this familiarly cyclical scenario emerges what is perhaps Robert Littell's most heartfelt and suspenseful novel. Isaac Apfelbaum, a well-known fundamentalist Rabbi, is taken hostage by Dr. al-Saath, who demands the release of several Palestinian prisoners in exchange for his prisoner. As Israel coaxes Elihu out of retirement to hunt down the terrorist who motivated his final mission, al-Saath and Apfelbaum find themselves building an extraordinary relationship between hostage taker and hostage: parallels between these two battle-hardened partisans become the bonds that could lead to reconciliation. But with Elihu's Mossad strike team closing in and a peace treaty at stake, has the vicious circle already been closed?

Ferociously suspenseful and brilliantly topical, Vicious Circle is a thriller that, like The Company before it, breaks down an entire culture of violence into the corrupted consciences that embody it.



Walking Back the Cat

The USA's smallest Indian tribe has started up a gambling casino, but someone - possibly the Mafia or the CIA - is shaking them down for the profits. A KGB killer, adrift after the breakup of the Soviet Union, joins forces with a young hot-air balloonist to investigate

  

Monday 30 March 2015

LOGGING THE LIBRARY - PART TWENTY-FIVE

Tub 25.....50 more

Tub 25!
60's prison crime  


Pawson series book, ditto Patterson, Quintin Jardine, Luke Rhinehart, Jospeh Hone

70's espionage

Joe Lansdale, Alan Furst, Colin Cotterill, Bill Bryson, and a short story collection 

Bill Bryson, travelogue 

Lansdale again, John King, Tim Relf, Frank McCourt, Scottish compilation

Football hooliganism-counter culture

Robert Ludlum - Jason Bourne, Malcolm Braly, Len Deighton, Joe Lansdale, William Hjortsberg

One of the best books I've ever read. Decent film as well!

Harry Palmer book

Max Allan Collins, Michael Collins (Dennis Lynds?), Tim Willocks, T. Jefferson Parker, Robert Sims Reid,

Love these NO EXIT covers.

Seymour Shubin, Desmond Barry, Jonathan Coe, Norman Green, Jonathan Meades,

One of my favourite reads of all time - I bought his other 5 off the back of this!

No idea what this is about - a bit of literature methinks
Ditto above! Great title

Welsh grit!

Sports autobiography, Ben Elton, Scott Phillips, Tony Black, plus non-fiction

Non-fiction concerning Berlin and the Stasi

Cracker - duplicate, evicted!, Bill Pronzini, Denise Mina, Tony Hillerman, Paul-Loup Sulitzer,

Tony Hillerman series book

NAMELESS detective - no. 17

Joseph Conrad, David Morrell, Peter Abrahams, and a short story compilation., 

Classic Polish espionage!

Peter Spiegelman, and a couple of magazine type  publications.

Crime Time Magazine from 1999 

Crime Writers in Conversation - Eddie Bunker on the cover.


Steve Lopez, Howard Jacobson

Post logging look!
Harlan Coben replacement for my duplicate Cracker book.
Lowlights......nothing really. THE GREEN KING looks long - a holiday re-read when I'm 90. Enjoyed it first time around.

Highlights - looking forward to Malcolm Braly, Joseph Hone, Desmond Barry and Jonathan Meades in particular.

FULL LIST OF 50.........
AUTHOR TITLE YEAR SERIES FICTION/NON GENDER
ABRAHAMS PETER HARD RAIN 1988 F M
ASH TIMOTHY GARTON THE FILE: A PERSONAL HISTORY 1997 N M
BARRY DESMOND A BLOODY GOOD FRIDAY 2002 F M
BLACK TONY PAYING FOR IT 2008 GD1 F M
BRALY MALCOLM ON THE YARD 1967 F M
BRYSON BILL THE LOST CONTINENT 1989 N M
COBEN HARLAN SIX YEARS 2013 F M
COE JONATHAN THE ROTTERS'CLUB 2001 RC1 F M
COLLINS MAX ALLAN NEON MIRAGE 1988 NH4 F M
COLLINS MICHAEL ACT OF FEAR 1967 DF1 F M
CONRAD JOSEPH THE SECRET AGENT 1907 F M
COTTERILL COLIN THE CORONER'S LUNCH 2004 DSP1 F M
DEIGHTON LEN FUNERAL IN BERLIN 1964 HP3 F M
DUNCAN PAUL THE THIRD  DEGREE (ed.) 1996 N M/F
ELTON BEN HIGH SOCIETY 2002 F M
FORSHAW BARRY CRIME TIME 2.4 (ed.) (APRIL 1999) 1999 N M/F
FURST ALAN DARK VOYAGE 2004 NS8 F M
GREAVES JIMMY GREAVSIE THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2003 N M
GREEN NORMAN SHOOTING DOCTOR JACK 2001 F M
GREENBERG/GORMAN MARTIN/ED INVITATION TO MURDER (ed.) 1991 F M/F
HILLERMAN TONY THE SINISTER PIG 2003 JL/JC10 F M
HJORTSBERG WILLIAM FALLING ANGEL 1978 F M
HONE JOSEPH THE SIXTH DIRECTORATE 1975 PM2 F M
JACOBSON HOWARD KALOOKA NIGHTS 2006 F M
JAKUBOWSKI MAXIM  NEW CRIMES 2 (ed.) 1991 F M
JARDINE QUINTIN ON HONEYMOON WITH DEATH 2001 OB5 F M
KING JOHN ENGLAND AWAY 1998 FFT3 F M
LANSDALE JOE R. COLD IN JULY 1989 F M
LANSDALE JOE R. CAPTAIN OUTRAGEOUS 2001 HC/LP6 F M
LANSDALE JOE R. ACT OF LOVE 1981 F M
LOPEZ STEVE THIRD AND INDIANA 1994 F M
LUDLUM ROBERT  THE BOURNE IDENTITY 1980 JB3 F M
McCOURT FRANK ANGELA'S ASHES 1996 AA1 N M
MEADE JONATHAN FILTHY ENGLISH 1984 F M
MINA DENISE THE FIELDS OF BLOOD 2005 PM1 F F
MORGAN ROWLAND TALL DEAD WIVES 1990 F M
MORRELL DAVID BLOOD OATH 1982 F M
PARKER T. JEFFERSON SUMMER OF FEAR 1993 F M
PATTERSON JAMES VIOLETS ARE BLUE 2001 AC7 F M
PAWSON STUART SHOOTING ELVIS 2006 DICP11 F M
PHILLIPS SCOTT THE WALKAWAY 2002 F M
PRONZINI BILL JACKPOT 1990 N17 F M
REID ROBERT SIMS THE RED CORVETTE 1992 LBM3 F M
RELF TIM HOME 2005 F M
RHINEHART LUKE ADVENTURES OF WIM 1986 DM2 F M
SHUBIN SEYMOUR A MATTER OF FEAR 1993 F M
SPIEGELMAN PETER THICK AS THIEVES 2011 F M
SULITZER PAUL-LOUP THE GREEN KING 1983 F M
WILLIAMSON KEVIN CHILDREN OF ALBION ROVERS (ed.) 1997 F M/F
WILLOCKS TIM GREEN RIVER RISING 1994 F M

Saturday 28 March 2015

JAMIE MASON - MONDAY'S LIE (2015)


Synopsis/blurb….

From the acclaimed author of the “ripping good” (The New York Times) debut novel Three Graves Full comes a new thriller about a woman who digs into her unconventional past to confirm what she suspects: her husband isn't what she thought he was.

Dee Aldrich rebelled against her off-center upbringing when she married the most conventional man she could imagine: Patrick, her college sweetheart. But now, years later, her marriage is falling apart and she’s starting to believe that her husband has his eye on a new life...a life without her, one way or another.

Haunted by memories of her late mother Annette, a former covert operations asset, Dee reaches back into her childhood to resurrect her mother’s lessons and the “spy games” they played together, in which Dee learned memory tricks and, most importantly, how and when to lie. But just as she begins determining the course of the future, she makes a discovery that will change her life: her mother left her a lot of money and her own husband seems to know more about it than Dee does. Now, before it’s too late, she must investigate her suspicions and untangle conspiracy from coincidence, using her mother’s advice to steer her through the blind spots. The trick, in the end, will be in deciding if a “normal life” is really what she wants at all.

With pulse-pounding prose and atmospheric settings, Monday’s Lie is a thriller that delivers more of the “Hitchcockian menace” (Peter Straub) that made Three Graves Full a critical hit. For fans of the Coen brothers or Gillian Flynn, this is a book you won’t want to miss.

I haven’t read Gillian Flynn so I don’t know if the comparison is apt, I do know that I really enjoyed this and for a long time this book was looking like a shoe-in for pick of the month.

Annette, now deceased was a spook-cum-government agent of some description and the mother of two; Dee, the elder daughter who our story concerns and Simon her younger brother. They had no father figure in their life apart from the irritating and extremely irksome Paul, their mother’s controller, (possible lover too? I might have the wrong end of the stick, or temporarily stopped paying attention.) What did I dislike about him? Well he was still breathing for starters. Ok…..controlling, interfering and manipulative.

Dee has married and craves a normal life, obviously a hangover from her unconventional upbringing where her mother would disappear off at short notice fairly frequently. Routine, order and organisation are prized over spontaneity and impulsiveness.

Our story centres on Dee’s life now and the increasingly difficulties she is having in her relationship with her husband. How much will she tolerate in order to preserve the illusion of a normal life?

We re-visit Dee and Simon’s childhood and see the life skills their mother taught them, often disguised in the form of a game or a riddle. Did you know that if you study a face in a photograph upside-down, you’ll always recognise it later, despite whatever efforts are made at disguise? Is that even true? I have no idea, but it was one of the little gems that Dee picked up. Anecdotes and reminisces and reflections back towards her childhood and the relationship Dee and Simon had with their mother were some of my favourite pieces in the book.

Applied to her current situation and her life in the here and now, I was frustrated by Dee’s unreasonable capacity for ignoring the signals that all was not well in her marriage. Eventually she develops a spine and puts some of her mother’s lessons to good use.

I really liked this tale as it unfolded, as like our main character we were in the dark as to what her husband was up to. The author ratcheted up the tension and I was sucked into the pages. I almost think it was too well done, insofar as once the big reveal came and we knew where we stood and what the end game was, it was a little bit anti-climactic for me.

Despite that little dip (in my opinion) I was happy with the eventual resolution. Still one of my tops reads this month….unusual premise, great characters, interesting to see all the relationships between the main characters…….who said what, who concealed what, who could we trust…..this book definitely had undertones of the espionage tale, though I doubt I could put a tick in that particular challenge box.

4 from 5 (75% maybe even 85% of it was a 5 star, a little bit of 4 star towards the end.)

Acquired via Net Galley.

This is I think the author’s second book. She has her website here

I have to find her debut novel Three Graves Full. It lurks somewhere in the tubs.
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Friday 27 March 2015

STARK HOLBORN - NUNSLINGER 2: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE PENITENT (2013)


Synopsis/blurb…..

The year is 1864. Sister Thomas Josephine is on her way from St Louis, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. During the course of her journey, however, she'll find that her faith requires her to take off her wimple and pick up a gun...

NUNSLINGER Book II relates the true tale of how Sister Thomas Josephine of St Louis, Missouri, comes to be wanted for murder and faces the hangman's noose in Carson City, Nevada. Only by relying on the help of an armload of fancy women and a wily old friend does she have any hope for escape!

Another 60 page episode and another blast, as our heroine rides straight out of one crisis and into another. Sister Josephine rocks up in a backwater settlement and happens upon a young starving child who is heavily pregnant. A blast from a shotgun leaves our bride of Christ sitting in prison, awaiting certain execution – especially as the dead child rapist, Wade happens to be the brother of our local lawman – Sheriff Paxton.

Intervention in the form of some curious and kind-hearted good-time girls and a fire at the jail sees our nun, taking refuge at the local knocking shop. With Paxton incensed and tearing around the town trying to recapture our nun, fortune temporarily shines on our nun, as Abe Muir (remember him from episode 1? Outlaw, deserter, nun kidnapper and enemy of Lieutenant Carthy) happens to be enjoying the attentions of some of the local beauties.

Coitus interruptus and the unlikely pair attempt to flee town again, only for disaster to strike. Sister Josephine soon finds herself back in clink and Paxton is determined to have his revenge.

Another 4 from 5 and another notch on the scoreboard.

Ex-Net Galley expiree – cum - Library copy with 2 instalments down and 10 episodes to go.

Stark Holborn (who are you?) has a website here and is on Twitter  @starkholborn


       

Thursday 26 March 2015

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH TORQUIL MACLEOD



Torquil MacLeod's Meet Me in Malmo was featured on the blog yesterday. To date he has written 4 books in his Malmo series featuring Anita Sundstrom.



Torquil was the latest author kind enough to tolerate a few questions from me.......




Q. Is the writing a full-time occupation? What is or was the day job?

Writing has become a full-time occupation in the last year as it gradually replaced the advertising copy-writing I had done for the previous 36 years in agencies in Birmingham, Glasgow and Newcastle – and then latterly as a freelance.

Q. Did you suffer many rejections on the way to becoming published?

My first book – Meet me in Malmö – was rejected by every agent I sent it to.  One of the few who bothered to offer a comment was a London agent who said how well I wrote about Malmö but had obviously never been to Newcastle (which is described in the book).  I was rather taken aback as I’d lived and worked in Newcastle for 30 years.  Eventually, it was taken on by a hardback publisher – that was through direct contact.  It took about two years to get that far.  After the short run of the hardback sold out, the publisher declined to reprint it, so eventually I got my rights back and decided to self publish it as an e-book.  I've done the same with the follow-ups.

Q. Any un-published gems in the bottom of your desk drawer?

A novel I wrote about a copywriter who gets into all sorts of appalling scrapes, most of which are not of his own making.  I thought it was brilliantly funny and sent it off to get professional advice.  When it came back, the report concluded it wasn't remotely amusing!  It went straight back into the bottom drawer.  I have a few film scripts that could be converted into novels – that’s how Meet me in Malmö started.

Q. What’s been the highlight of your writing career so far?

When the e-book of Meet me in Malmö got into Amazon UK’s top 50 – for a day!

Q. What’s a typical writing day consist of?

I’m not very disciplined.  I’m easily distracted so I tend to work in bursts.  When I was freelancing, it was a matter of fitting in the odd hour or half hour of novel writing around my work.  Now my most productive writing is done later in the day because I've usually spent the morning faffing around.

Q. Do you have a target word count for each day or do you write for a set number of hours, or do you have a specific point in the story you want to get to?

I want to write at least a thousand words a day.  On a good day, it’s a lot more; on a distracted day, less.


Q. Are you a plotter? Do you have a beginning, middle and end all mapped out before you start, or does the story unfold of its own accord as you write it?

Definitely not a plotter.  I sometimes have the beginning or the end, and then work from there.  I’ll have a vague idea of the story-lines as I like to work two into each book (except for Meet me in Malmö, which has one main plot).  I go in with the attitude that if I have no idea what’s coming next, hopefully the reader won’t either.  It also makes the story more flexible, so it can go off in directions I wasn't expecting.

Q. Do you have to do much research for your books? How does a Scotsman living in the North of England end up writing Scandi-crime?

I like to visit the locations I use.  And as my elder son has lived in Malmö for over a decade, that has made life easy.  And through him and his family, we have a lot of Swedish friends in southern Sweden – one of whom is a blonde, female detective.  That’s also useful!  Some readers like to look up the locations I use on Google Earth, so I have to make them accurate.

I first visited Sweden in 2000 and thought it would be a great place to set a film.  I was working with a producer on various projects at the time.  Back then, Henning Mankell and the Scandi crime invasion hadn't yet reached the UK.  When the films came to nothing (as they tend to do), I decided to turn one of two Swedish ideas I had into a book. 

Q. Any plans in the future for some non-Sundstrom books? 

Last year I brought out an historical crime book called Sweet Smell of Murder.  It’s the story of a feckless actor who finds himself in deep trouble in the Newcastle of the 1750s.  It’s more of a Georgian romp with murders and spies thrown in.  The manuscript had gathered dust in that bottom desk drawer for 20 years, so I decided to give it an airing.  At the time I had ideas for another twelve.  I would certainly like to write another one or two.  I’m too old now to complete them all.

Q. In Meet Me in Malmo and I might be barking up the wrong tree totally, our retired Inspector Gazzard – it wouldn't be a hat-tip to a certain famous North East footballer with a similar moniker? I've never heard of it before.

No.  Inspector Gazzard was named after one of my oldest school friends.  But I like the idea of Inspector Gazza.  Maybe Inspector Gazza could investigate all the things that have gone wrong at St James’ Park in recent times.

Q. Who are you reading and enjoying?

I love history and I try to introduce snippets that people might not be aware of into the Anita Sundström stories.  As part of the research for the latest book, Midnight in Malmö, we went to Berlin.  As a result I've just read Antony Beevor’s Berlin: The Downfall 1945.  “Enjoying” is probably the wrong word as it’s a brutal read.  Though it’s the wrong way round, I want to move onto his Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege





Q. Last 5 books you've read?

Berlin: The Downfall 1945 by Antony Beevor
The Highland Lass by Janet MacLeod Trotter (she’s my sister and a prolific novelist)
The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler
Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré
The Pale Battalions by Robert Goddard

Q. Is there one all-time favourite book you wished you had written?

I always loved George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman books.  Not only are they funny and stuffed with wonderful history, but also I just love the cheek of pinching someone else’s famous literary character and running away with it. 







Q. Favourite activity when not writing?

Nowadays it’s spending precious time with my grandchildren who, unfortunately, live nowhere near us.  And I've spent a lifetime supporting sporting lost causes – Scotland rugby and football, Newcastle United, and the England cricket team.

Q. What’s the current project in progress? How’s it going?

I've started on an Anita Sundström short story set around a typical Swedish Christmas.  Too early to judge whether it’s going to work.  Then, later this year, I’ll begin the fifth Malmö Mystery.  In between, I might return to my feckless 18th-century actor.

Q. What’s the best thing about being published?

It’ll be nice to have a physical paperback in my hand with a cover I like (the hardback one didn't do the book any favours).  I think I’ll feel a real sense of achievement.  Put it this way, if my old English teacher were still alive, he wouldn't believe it.

Q. What’s the worst?

I’ll let you know after the paperbacks come out.

Q. If I pop back in a couple of years’ time – where do you hope to book with the writing career?

I hope to have produced another couple of books by then.  At least it’ll keep me from getting under my wife’s feet.


 -----------------------------
Many thanks to Torquil for his time.

You can find out a bit more about him over here on his website. 

His Malmo series of books were originally self-published, but are being re-released in paperback by McNidder & Grace, starting with the first today.

The following three will appear in print later this year I believe.

Paperback available in June

Paperback available in August
Print version - TBA