Monday 22 August 2016

LOGGING THE LIBRARY - PART EIGHTY

Tub 80 and a ridiculous 4000 books logged, let's hope I can retire soon and read some!

Tub 80!

Malcolm Pryce, Tony O'Neill, Helen Walsh, Martin Amis, John Irving,

Not the Tony O'Neill I thought it was, but I still reckon I'll enjoy this one!

John Irving - short story collection
Here is a treat for John Irving addicts and a perfect introduction to his work for the uninitiated. In his spirited opening piece, Irving explains how he became a writer:

'A fiction writer's memory is an especially imperfect provider of detail; we can always imagine a better detail than the one we can remember. The correct detail is rarely exactly what happened; the most truthful detail is what could have happened, or what should have...Being a writer is a strenuous marriage between careful observation and just as carefully imagining the truths you haven't had the opportunity to see. The rest is the necessary strict toiling with the language...'

'With that in mind I think that I have become a writer because of my grandmother's good manners and - more specifically - because of a retarded garbage collector to whom my grandmother was always polite and kind.'

There follows six scintillating stories written over the past twenty years, including The Pension Grillparzer, previously only to be found inside The World According To Garp, and now given its first independent airing. The collection ends with a homage to Charles Dickens, of which the Sunday Telegraph said, 'so rousingly old-fashioned, so intelligent, so heart-felt, so politically incorrect and so correct in every way that matters, that it makes you want to dance naked through the streets brandishing a copy of Great Expectations.'

Mark Childress, Sean Black, Chris Simms, Mark Brandon Read, Charlie Huston,

Charlie Huston, Geoff Nicholson, Elmore Leonard, Colin Bateman, Edwin Torres, 

Joe Pitt novel 
NOBODY LIVES FOREVER. NOT EVEN A VAMPYRE.

Just ask Joe Pitt. After exposing the secret source of blood for half of Manhattan's Vampyres, he's definitely a dead man walking. He's been a punching bag and a bullet magnet for every Vampyre Clan in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, not to mention a private eye, an enforcer, an exile, and a vigilante, but now he's just a target with legs.

For a year he's sloshed around the subway tunnels and sewers, tapping the veins of the lost, while above ground a Vampyre civil war threatens to drag the Clans into the sunlight once and for all. What's it gonna take to dig him up? Just the search for a missing girl who's carrying a baby that just might be the destiny of Vampyre-kind. Not that Joe cares all that much about destiny and such. What he cares about is that his ex-girl Evie wants him to take the gig. What's the risk? Another turn playing pigeon in a shooting gallery. What's the reward? Maybe one shot of his own. What's he aiming for? Nothing much. Just all the evil at the heart of his world.

Geoff Nicholson
Mick is on his way to the Smoke from the provinces. He's got six guys to find with only their names to go on and no more help than the phone book and an A Z. Stuart is determined to walk each of the capital's roads, streets and alleyways. But what will he do when there's nothing left of his A Z but blacked out pages? Judy is set on creating her own unique map of each of the metropolis' boroughs . . . an A Z of sex in the city. Three strangers in search of London's heart and soul, mapping out their stories from Acton to Hackney, Chelsea Harbour to Woolwich, in a comic dance of sex and death.

Colin Bateman - funny as f***!
Set in a mythical Northern Ireland town. Drunken journalist Miller is sent as a punishment from his Belfast newspaper to small-town Crossmaheart as a replacement for someone who has disappeared. Once there, he falls is love with the missing man's girlfriend.

Walter Mosley x 3, Patrick Neate, Gary Phillips, 

Ivan Monk series book!
Set in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating and the subsequent riots, a novel set in Los Angeles in which a private investigator examines the murder of a Korean shop owner. Many suspect a racial motive, but it soon becomes clear to the private investigator that greed is a more likely motive.

Gotta love those 90s Serpents Tail covers - Walter Mosley!
The police don't show up on Easy Rawlins's doorstep until the third girl dies. It's Los Angeles, 1956, and it takes more than one murdered black girl before the cops get interested. Now they need Easy. As he says: "I was worth a precinct full of detectives when the cops needed the word in the ghetto." But Easy turns them down. He's married now, a father -- and his detective days are over. Then a white college coed dies the same brutal death, and the cops put the heat on Easy: If he doesn't help, his best friend is headed for jail. So Easy's back, walking the midnight streets of Watts and the darker, twisted avenues of a cunning killer's mind....
Another Easy Rawlins book!
It's 1964, and Easy Rawlins has given up street life, and has a job as a high school janitor. One morning, Easy is seduced by a teacher with a dog. By evening, the teacher is gone, leaving Easy with her dog, and a corpse. A murderer is running loose and a little yellow dog is plotting revenge.

Walter Mosley, Sebastian Faulks, Denis Johnson, Jim Thompson, Andrea Camilleri,

1954 novel from Jim Thompson
Young, beautiful, and fearfully abused, Mona was the kind of girl even a hard man like Dillon couldn't bring himself to use. But when Mona told him about the vicious aunt who had turned her into something little better than a prostitute--and about the money the old lady has stashed away--Dillon found it surprisingly easy to kill for her.

Denis Johnson
From the National Book Award-winning, bestselling author of Tree of Smoke comes a provocative thriller set in the American West. Nobody Move, which first appeared in the pages of Playboy, is the story of an assortment of lowlifes in Bakersfield, California, and their cat-and-mouse game over $2.3 million. Touched by echoes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, Nobody Move is at once an homage to and a variation on literary form. It salutes one of our most enduring and popular genres - the American crime novel - but does so with a grisly humor and outrageousness that are Denis Johnson's own. Sexy, suspenseful, and above all entertaining, Nobody Move shows one of our greatest novelists at his versatile best.

Tom McNab, John Boyne, Walter Mosley x 2, Martin Cruz Smith,

Early 70s Cruz Smith!
The priceless Royal Crown of Hungary was on display in St Patrick's Cathedral in New York. Guarded by many, including the NYPD and the gypsy, Roman Grey, a heist was impossible. But it happened, and murder, mayhem and all hell broke loose. By the author of "Gorky Park".

Declan Hughes, Carl Hiaasen x 2 John McCabe, Ray Shannon, 

Carl Hiaasen - and his weekly rage against the machine! Collection of newspaper columns.
The "Miami Herald" columnist shares his best comic work, covering everything from sports and tourism to corruption in local politics, the Elian Gonzalez affair, and the 2000 presidential election recount.
John McCabe, 
What happens after you get away with it?

For Ian HAS got away with it. His computer banking scam. It worked. All he has to do now is stay out of England, sit back and spend the impressive monthly salary he hasn't earned.

But as an unexpected glitch begins to threaten Ian's cosy lifestyle, he realises that desperate situations call for desperate remedies. Even to the extent of moving to the West Midlands and pretending to be a mediocre scientist called Darren.

Darren doesn't know anything about this, but he soon will. All he does know is that someone has stolen his identity and is spending it unwisely. His blissfully unaware existence is about to become caught up in something entirely of another person's making.

Archie has never met Darren, and wishes that he had never met Ian. But now it appears that Ian has resurfaced, and is passing himself off as Darren. Things are beginning to look up. For when identities are being traded, it takes someone of Archie's incessant dullness to triumph amongst uncertainty.
Robert Crais, Jesse Kellerman, G. M. Ford, Sam Reaves, Various,

A novel by 9 folks!
Sex. Money. International terrorism. And, of course, the ultimate question: Can a compact backswing save the world? Now, in the tradition of Naked Came the Stranger and Naked Came the Manatee, a clubhouseful of acclaimed authors pass the baton (or the six-iron) to create an ensemble tour de force of suspense, romance, and hilarity on the links. Golf is not a team sport. But who says fiction can't be? Get ready. The gallery is hushed-and the approach shot nears. The birdie has landed... THE PUTT AT THE END OF THE WORLD Fore? No, nine! That's right. Nine literary grand masters each contribute a chapter and together bring you a full round-robin of characters, not to mention a blistering drive of a story line that beats par with every page.

Alfonzo Zamora is the venerable Mexican Senior player who's just discovered he's going blind. Billy Sprague is the country club pro with a swing as elegant as an eagle in flight-except when money's on the line. Rita Shaughnessy is the hard-drinking, hard-loving, hard-luck golfer on the women's pro tour.

All three receive an invitation from multibillionaire Phillip Bates, founder of Macrodyne Software. To inaugurate his dazzling new course in Scotland, Bates is spending millions to host a tournament starring the superpro trio. The gala will welcome world leaders in the name of global peace and the universal language of golf. Launching Bates's new, revolutionary computer operating system, the weekend volley will also attract a long scorecard of wild and unanticipated guests, including the world's most elusive environmental terrorist, a Spanish caddie named Humpy who inspires bogeys, a caddish pro who can't pass the Rorschach test, a sexy male-female counterterrorist team who keep driving into traps of their own making, a certain naked golfer making a bid for his hole in one, and enough plastique to end the world as we know it....

Will things get rough in the rough?

Will the green run red?

Where is the mysterious nineteenth hole?

And in an apocalyptic final play that will determine the fate of the world, ecoterrorists will converge on the course for an explosive putt to end all putts. The "Good Walk" has never been more fun!

John Le Carre, Charles Willeeford, Lionel White, John Lutz, Robert Goddard, 

My man Willeford!
A nervous breakdown, two daughters who want to quit school and a pregnant unmarried partner tells Hoke Moseley it is time to simplify his crazy life. Moving out of Miami to manage a small hotel seems a good idea - until psycho career criminal, Troy Louden, happens along with his makeshift gang that includes a little old man, a no-talent artist, a disfigured stripper and drags Hoke back to the job he thought he had left behind for ever.

1955 - Lionel White!
The wheels were beginning to turn. From all parts of the country quiet, tough men slipped into the small southern coastal town and took up the final vigil. There was the arsonist, the safe blower, the boy-faced killer-there was a regiment of crack, lawless men waiting out the minutes until Saturday night-the night the town would explode into violence. For in the center of town sat the bank-a citadel of twelve million dollars, impregnable as Gibraltar, safe as a church. Safe-until precisely ten-fifteen on Saturday night. Until the wheels began to pick up momentum, and suddenly a fire lit the sky, and the power went off all over town and under way went the king-sized knockover. The grand slam. The Big Caper.
John Straley, Mark Timlin, Paul Murray, Tony O'Neill, Daniel Lang, 

John Straley
Cold Storage, Alaska, is a remote fishing outpost where salmonberries sparkle in the morning frost and where you just might catch a King Salmon if you're Zen enough to wait for it. Settled in 1935 by Norse fishermen who liked to skinny dip in its natural hot springs, the town enjoyed prosperity in the mid-20th century, at the height of the frozen fish boom. But now the cold storage plant is all but abandoned and the population is shrinking every day.

Clive "the Milkman" McCahon returns to his tiny Alaska hometown after a seven-year jail stint for dealing coke. He has a lot to make up to his younger brother, Miles, who has dutifully been taking care of their ailing mother - and, really, all of Cold Storage. Miles is a physician's assistant and the closest thing to a doctor this side of Sitka. But Clive doesn't realize the trouble he's bringing home. He's reformed now, and his dream is to open a bar-slash-church (a Cold Storage ordinance requires there to be as many churches in town as there are bars). Clive's vengeful old business partner is hot on his heels, a stick-in-the-mud State Trooper is dying to bust Clive for narcotics, and, to complicate everything, Clive might be going insane - lately, he's been hearing animals talking to him. Will his arrival in Cold Storage be a breath of fresh air for the sleepy, depopulated town? Or will it turn the whole place upside-down?
The correct Tony O'Neill!
"Lupita and Genesis have just wasted a drug dealer and hit the open road with a suitcase full of dirty money and crystal meth. Little do they know that their road trip will set them on a collision course with a side of American life even darker and weirder than their own. IRVINE WELSH _'BLACK NEON is a pitch black classic slice of neo-noir, where black magic, art house cinema, drug-fuelled madness and apocalyptic violence collide with dizzying effect.I fell in love with every page.'

Tub 80 - sorted and logged!

HIGHLIGHTS........Charles Willeford, Tony O'Neill, Lionel White, Elmore Leonard, Jim Thompson, Colin Bateman, Walter Mosley and all the rest!

LOWLIGHTS...... Nothing - not a bad book in the bunch!

FULL LIST OF 50 AS FOLLOWS:


AUTHOR TITLE YEAR SERIES
AMIS MARTIN OTHER PEOPLE 1981
BATEMAN COLIN CYCLE OF VIOLENCE 1995
BLACK SEAN LOCK DOWN 2009 RL1
BOYNE JOHN THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS 2006
CAMILLERI ANDREA THE TRACK OF SAND 2010 IM12
CHILDRESS MARK A WORLD MADE OF FIRE 1984
CRAIS ROBERT THE TWO MINUTE RULE 2006
CRUZ SMITH MARTIN CANTO FOR A GYPSY 1972 RG2
FAULKS SEBASTIAN ENGLEBY 2007
FORD G. M. BLOWN AWAY 2006 FC6
GODDARD ROBERT SIGHT UNSEEN 2005
HIAASEN CARL PARADISE SCREWED 2001
HIAASEN CARL KICK ASS 1999
HUGHES DECLAN CITY OF LOST GIRLS 2010 EL5
HUSTON CHARLIE SIX BAD THINGS 2005 HT2
HUSTON CHARLIE MY DEAD BODY 2009 JP5
IRVING JOHN TRYING TO SAVE PIGGY SNEED 1993
JOHNSON DENIS NOBODY MOVE 2009
KELLERMAN JESSE SUNSTROKE 2006
LANG DANIEL CASUALTIES OF WAR 1969
LE CARRE JOHN A PERFECT SPY 1986
LEONARD  ELMORE TISHOMINGO BLUES 2002
LUTZ JOHN SCORCHER 1987 FC2
McCABE JOHN SNAKESKIN 2001
McNAB TOM FLANAGAN'S RUN 1982
MOSLEY WALTER A LITTLE YELLOW DOG 1996 ER5
MOSLEY WALTER A RED DEATH 1991 ER2
MOSLEY WALTER WHITE BUTTERFLY 1992 ER3
MOSLEY WALTER LITTLE SCARLET 2004 ER9
MOSLEY WALTER GONE FISHIN' 1997 ER6
MOSLEY WALTER RL'S DREAM 1995
MURRAY PAUL SKIPPY DIES 2010
NEATE PATRICK TWELVE BAR BLUES 2001
NICHOLSON GEOFF BLEEDING LONDON 1997
O'NEILL TONY RED ARMY GENERAL 2004
O'NEILL TONY BLACK NEON 2014
PHILLIPS  GARY VIOLENT SPRINGS 1994 IM2
PRYCE MALCOLM DON'T CRY FOR ME ABERYSTWYTH 2007 LKM4
READ MARK BRANDON CHOPPER 5
REAVES SAM DOOLEY'S BACK 2002
SHANNON RAY FIRECRACKER 2004
SIMMS CHRIS KILLING THE BEASTS 2005 DIJS1
STRALEY JOHN COLD STORAGE, ALASKA 2012
THOMPSON JIM A HELL OF A WOMAN 1954
TIMLIN MARK TAKE THE A-TRAIN 1991 NS6
TORRES EDWIN CARLITO'S WAY 1975 C1
VARIOUS THE PUTT AT THE END OF THE WORLD 2000
WALSH HELEN BRASS 2004
WHITE LIONEL THE BIG CAPER 1955
WILLEFORD CHARLES SIDESWIPE 1987 HM3

10 comments:

  1. That's a nice lot there, Col! Mosely, Hiaasen, Cruz Smith, and Camilleri - it all adds up to what I hope is going to be some great reading for you.

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    1. It does look like I'll have plenty to enjoy with this one Margot! I just need to find some precious time.

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  2. Col, I have not read TRYING TO SAVE PIGGY SNEED but John Irving remains one of my favourite authors, even though there is many a common thread in his novels. I find them entertaining, nonetheless. I also need to read the works of Martin Amis.

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    1. Prashant, I'm pretty sure I read PIGGY SNEED years ago, but can remember nothing about it unfortunately! Martin Amis, I have read a couple from him, mainly his later stuff and haven't enjoyed it as much as I'd hoped. Hopefully his earlier books will be more to my taste.

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  3. Col – White, Willeford and Thompson are three of my favorites. If you have not read Thompson’s “POP. 1280,” try to find it. It is a different Thompson – very funny in parts. I am going to look for Gary Phillips’ VIOLENT SPRING.

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    1. Elgin, I have POP.1280 somewhere but can't recall reading it, I'll try and dig it out. Some of his stuff I've enjoyed a lot more than others. His work was a bit uneven.

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  4. Not much for me there, neither much that I've read nor want to read. Somehow I feel that's a reprieve for me, which is quite illogical!

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    1. At least you haven't added to your TBR pile!

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  5. Glen was interested in that Malcolm Pryce series at one time, but we had a hard time finding copies. I like Walter Moseley a lot, have you read any of the Easy Rawlins series (or anything else by him for that matter)?

    I read A Perfect Spy by Le Carre in the last couple of months but haven't reviewed it yet. I loved it, even though it is a very thick book.

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    1. I read the first Pryce book and was a bit underwhelmed - which serves me right because I think I have the next three in the series.

      I've read Mosley on and off and probably read the first three or four Rawlins books, but back in the 90s or early 00s. I reread the first a year or two ago. I just never have enough time and my head keeps getting turned by other attractive books.

      I still haven't gotten past the first Le Carre Smiley and that's been a few years now!

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