Monday 19 September 2016

LOGGING THE LIBRARY - PART EIGHTY-THREE

A project that started in October, 2014 with the contents of the first tub recorded, approaches two years in progress with tub 83......

Tub 83

John Gardner, James Patterson, Joe R. Lansdale, Dennis Lehane, Brian Garfield,

John Gardner and Boysie Oakes!
Boysie Oakes is back.

The suave, womanising special agent for British Intelligence returns in his second thrilling adventure.

At the height of the Cold War, Boysie is sent on a routine mission to America.

In San Diego, he will be the official British observer for the test-fire of America's latest nuclear missile: The Trepholite.

But the Soviets have other plans.

A double of Boysie has been sent into the field.

And very soon Boysie is embroiled in a game of bluff and double-bluff involving a holocaustic missile, a slick con man - and Vladimir Solev, an deadly opponent and yet also a man in whom Boysie sees something of himself.

Along the way, Boysie is mixed up with two gorgeous women - the sultry Priscilla Braddock Fairchild and the luscious Chicory Triplehouse.

As he adventures across the United States, Boysie must dodge bullets, deadly predators and jealous women.

And as he arrives in San Diego the clock is ticking and Operation Understrike is under way.

'Understrike' is the second in the series of highly acclaimed spy novels featuring cowardly secret agent, Boysie Oakes. It is perfect for fans of classic British spy fiction, including Ian Fleming, Len Deighton, and Desmond Bagley.

John Gardner, Joseph Hone, John D. MacDonald, Gregg Hurwitz, John Ball,

Joseph Hone - 1971 espionage book
Eric Ambler, John Buchan, Erskine Childers, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, Len Deighton, Ian Fleming, Frederick Forsyth, Graham Greene, Geoffrey Household, John le Carre, Robert Ludlum and Joseph Hone. What do they have in common? They wrote spy thrillers and all have appeared in a recent survey of the fifty best books in that genre. Although he may be the least known the inclusion of Joseph Hone was not eccentric. The particular title chosen was The Private Sector the first of his Peter Marlow titles. The author and the title are fully deserving of this accolade. The time is May, 1967 in the weeks leading up to the Arab/Israeli six day war. The place is Cairo. The story is Peter Marlow's, an Irish teacher and secret agent sent from London to find his friend and fellow spy, Henry Edwards who has vanished from Cairo. During the course of this fool's errand, he also finds his former wife, Bridget, who is now deeply involved with Edwards both emotionally and professionally. Marlow moves easily British and Egyptian intelligence branches, attaching his allegiance to neither until he becomes the unwitting victim of a failed plot to topple Nasser. Credible and dramatic, this is a story of callous political and human intrigue and of a mission which can only succeed if none of the men return.

John Camp, Gavin Lyall, Lawrence Block, Jimmy Boyle, Andy McNab,

Daniel Silva, Robert Crais, Brian Freemantle, Ian Rankin, John D. MacDonald,

More Charlie Muffin - book 4
Charlie Muffin has been approached to mastermind a 4.5 million dollar protection job for Tsar Nicholas II's priceless stamp collection. Charlie has no way of knowing that the Romanov stamp exhibition has been staged entirely by the FBI to capture Giuseppe Terrilli, a Florida businessman with a passion for stamps. The Tsar's stamp collection debuts in New York as the Terrilli's mob assembles in Florida to organize the theft of the collection. The robbery proves not to be quite so simple once Charlie has arrived.



Barry Maitland, Dave Eggers, Peter Doyle, Peter May, Zane Lovitt,

Australian crime - Peter Doyle and Billy Glasheen
August 1945: the Japanese have surrendered and there's dancing in the streets of Sydney. But Billy Glasheen has little time to celebrate; his black marketeer boss has disappeared, leaving Billy high and dry. Soon he s on the run from the criminals and the cops, not to mention a shady private army. They all think he has the thing they want, and they'll kill to get hold of it. Unfortunately for Billy, he doesn't know what it is . . . but he'd better find it fast. Set in Australia in the years following World War II, Peter Doyle's novels brilliantly explore the criminal underworld, political corruption, and the postwar explosion of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll.

Australian crime again - Zane Lovitt
A brilliant Melbourne crime novel, told in ten hardboiled stories.

Winner, Ned Kelly Awards, Best First Fiction, 2013.

John Dorn is a private investigator. Just like his father used to be. It says 'private inquiry agent' in John's yellow pages ad because that's what his old man called himself, back before his business folded, his wife left him and he drank himself to death.

But John's not going to end up like his father. He doesn't have a wife, or much business. He doesn't really drink, either. Not yet.

In each of these ten delicious stories Zane Lovitt presents an intriguing investigation filled with humour and complex, beautifully observed characters. At their centre is John Dorn, solving not so much crimes as funny human puzzles; but the crimes, and the criminals, are forever lurking nearby, taunting him from the city's cold underworld.

It's his job to unravel the mystery, or right the wrong, or just do what the client has hired him to do. Somehow, though, there is a misstep at every turn, and John takes another small stumble towards his moment of personal truth. His midnight promise. Perhaps even his redemption.

Robert Harris, Jess Walter, Owen Sheers, Anthony Bourdain, Larry Heinemann,

Jess Walter - National Book Award Nominee
What's left of a place when you take the ground away?

Answer: The Zero.

Brian Remy has no idea how he got here. It's been only five days since his city was attacked, and Remy is experiencing gaps in his life--as if he were a stone skipping across water. He has a self-inflicted gunshot wound he doesn't remember inflicting. His son wears a black armband and refuses to acknowledge that Remy is still alive. He seems to be going blind. He has a beautiful new girlfriend whose name he doesn't know. And his old partner in the police department, who may well be the only person crazier than Remy, has just gotten his picture on a box of First Responder cereal.

And these are the good things in Brian Remy's life. While smoke still hangs over the city, Remy is recruited by a mysterious government agency that is assigned to gather all of the paper that was scattered in the attacks. As he slowly begins to realize that he's working for a shadowy operation, Remy stumbles across a dangerous plot, and soon realizes he's got to track down the most elusive target of them all--himself. And the only way to do that is to return to that place where everything started falling apart.

From a young novelist of astounding talent, The Zero is an extraordinary story of searing humor and sublime horror, of blindness, bewilderment, and that achingly familiar feeling that the world has suddenly stopped making sense.

Mark Brandon Read, Sarah Caudwell, Robert Harris, Alex James, Jed Mercurio, 


Jed Mercurio

Like any womaniser, the subject of this novel must go to extraordinary lengths to hide his affairs from his wife and colleagues. But this is no ordinary adulterer - he is John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. Yet he is also a virtuous man ensnared by an uncontrollable vice.

Startlingly empathetic, darkly witty and deft, American Adulterer takes inspiration from the tantalising details surrounding President Kennedy's sex life and medical secrets to weave a provocatively intricate portrait of the man's affairs, illness, courage and idealism - and in JFK's love for his wife, recreates one of history's most fascinatingly enigmatic marriages.

Anthony Bourdain - crime fiction!
All is not well at the Dreadnought Grill - the chef has a smack habit, the owner has been set up by the FBI and in the midst of this, the sous-chef Tommy is just trying to do his job.

Stella Rimington, Robert B. Parker, Ryan David Jahn, Koji Suzuki, Jeremy Poolman,

Barbara Vine, Keith Thomson, John R. Maxim, Mark Poirier, Jonas Jonasson,

Martin H. Greenberg/Bill Pronzini (ed.), Norman Green, Ryan David Jahn, Joe R. Lansdale, Chris Rose,

Joe R. Lansdale - Hap Collins and Leonard Pine
Florida Grange, Leonard Pine's lawyer and Hap Collin's former lover, has disappeared while on a case. Redneck psychopaths, voodoo exhumations, biblical thunderstorms and murder - nothing can deflect Hap and Leonard from their search for her, especially since they've just packed a lunch.

Chris Rose - non-fiction regarding Hurricane Katrina
With a new foreword by the author on the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina Chris Rose s "New York Times" bestselling collection: A gripping book about life s challenges in post-Katrina New Orleans packed with heart, honesty, and wit ("New Republic").

Celebrated as a local classic and heaped with national praise, "1 Dead in Attic" is a brilliant collection of columns by an award-winning "Times-Picayune" journalist chronicling the horrific damage and aftermath wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2006. Frank and compelling...vivid and invaluable ("Booklist"), it is a roller coaster ride through a devastated American wasteland as it groans for rebirth. Full of the emotion, tragedy and even humor which has made Chris Rose a favorite son and the voice of a lost city these are the stories of the dead and the living, of survivors and believers, of destruction and recovery, and of hope and despair.

With photographs by British photojournalist Charlie Varley, "1 Dead in Attic" captures New Orleans caught between an old era and a new, New Orleans in its most desperate time, as it struggled out of floodwaters and willed itself back to life."

Another tub sorted!
HIGHLIGHTS.....Lawrence Block, Norman Green, John Camp, Joe R. Lansdale, Jess Walter and others.

LOWLIGHTS..... nothing really - a decent tub in my opinion.

FULL LIST OF 50 AS FOLLOWS:
AUTHOR TITLE YEAR SERIES
BALL JOHN DEATH FOR A PLAYMATE 1969 VT3
BLOCK LAWRENCE EVERYBODY DIES 1998 MS14
BOURDAIN ANTHONY BONE IN THE THROAT 1995
BOYLE JIMMY A SENSE OF FREEDOM 1977
BRANDON READ MARK CHOPPER 3 2007 C3
CAMP JOHN THE EMPRESS FILE 1991 K+LE2
CAUDWELL SARAH THE SHORTEST WAY TO HADES 1984 HT2
CRAIS ROBERT HOSTAGE 2001
DOYLE PETER THE DEVIL'S JUMP 2001 BG3
EGGERS DAVE A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS 1999
FREEMANTLE BRIAN CHARLIE MUFFIN'S UNCLE SAM 1980 CM4
GARDNER JOHN UNDERSTRIKE 1965 BO2
GARDNER JOHN FOUNDER MEMBER 1969 BO5
GARFIELD BRIAN THE ROMANOV SUCCESSION 1974
GREEN NORMAN SICK LIKE THAT 2010 AM2
HARRIS ROBERT THE FEAR INDEX 2011
HARRIS ROBERT ARCHANGEL 1998
HEINEMANN LARRY CLOSE QUARTERS 1977
HONE JOSEPH THE PRIVATE SECTOR 1971 PM1
HURWITZ GREGG WE KNOW 2008
JAHN RYAN DAVID THE LAST TOMORROW 2012
JAHN RYAN DAVID ACTS OF VIOLENCE 2009
JAMES ALEX BIT OF A BLUR 2007
JONASSON JONAS THE HUNDRED-YEAR OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED 2012
LANSDALE JOE R. WRITER OF THE PURPLE RAGE 1994
LANSDALE JOE R. THE TWO-BEAR MAMBO 1995 HC+LP3
LEHANE DENNIS PRAYERS FOR RAIN 1999 K+G5
LOVITT ZANE THE MIDNIGHT PROMISE 2012
LYALL GAVIN THE WRONG SIDE OF THE SKY 1961
MACDONALD JOHN D. THE DAMNED 1952
MACDONALD JOHN D. THE LONG LAVENDER LOOK 1970 TMCG
MAITLAND BARRY CRUCIFIXION CREEK 2015 BT1
MAXIM JOHN R. BANNERMAN'S LAW 1991 B3
MAY PETER RUNAWAY 2015
McNAB ANDY BRAVO TWO ZERO 1993
MERCURIO JED AMERICAN ADULTERER 2009
PARKER ROBERT B. BRIMSTONE 2009 VC+EH3
PATTERSON JAMES POP GOES THE WEASEL 1998 AC5
POIRIER MARK NAKED PUEBLO 1998
POOLMAN JEREMY INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE STATE OF ARIZONA 1996
PRONZINI/GREENBERG BILL/MARTIN H. THE GIANT BOOK OF PRIVATE EYE STORIES (ed.) 1997
RANKIN IAN HIDE & SEEK 1990 JR2
RIMINGTON STELLA DEAD LINE 2008 LC4
ROSE CHRIS 1 DEAD IN ATTIC 2005
SHEERS OWEN I SAW A MAN 2015
SILVA DANIEL PRINCE OF FIRE 2005 GA5
SUZUKI KOJI DARK WATER 2004
THOMSON KEITH ONCE A SPY 2010 DC1
VINE BARBARA THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER'S BOY 1998
WALTER JESS THE ZERO 2006 C2

12 comments:

  1. Col, I have a couple of unreads by John Gardner and I still have to get around to reading some of John D. MacDonald's paperback in my collection.

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    1. Prashant, Gardner wrote some James Bond books also - nearly as many as Ian Fleming, but I only have his Boysie Oakes series, which is more than enough for me! John D. is someone else I have enjoyed in the past, but neglected to read of late.

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    2. I forgot Gardner wrote some JB novels too. I'll have to see which ones I have; they could be Boysie Oakes.

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    3. Either series, you're probably in for a good time.

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  2. Oh, you've got some good 'uns there, Col. MacDonald, Maitland, Parker... And oh, I see a Caudwell there, too. I'll be interested in what you think of that.

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    1. Haha - when I was looking to expand my reading I snapped up a couple of the Caudwell's having heard you and Moira, I think discuss them. I haven't taken the plunge yet, though I can't put it off for ever!

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  3. That is a very decent tub, with some authors / books I want to read. I have read John Gardner but not the Boysie Oakes series. I would like to read more by John Ball and Brian Garfield. And more Robert Crais. And I haven't read any Freemantle at all.

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    1. I think you'll like Brian Freemantle when you get to him.

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  4. I'm intrigued by the Jed Mercurio - I know him for his TV writing: the book sounds good. And Joseph Hone - never heard of him, but sounds as though I should.

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    1. And, I guess that's the same Jess Walter who wrote Beautiful Ruins? I loved that book, which I was introduced to by your blog.

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    2. I liked the look of the Mercurio when I bought it, but it's not really singing out to me now. Joseph Hone reminds me of Victor Canning/Len Deighton type books - right up your alley I reckon. Plus point - I think it's a short 4 book series with Peter Marlow.

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    3. Yes - Jess Walter - Beautiful Ruins dude!

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