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Broken Skin by Stuart Macbride. Crime fiction 10/10 |
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By bookworm on
8/30/2007 11:45 AM
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Stuart Macbride’s police procedural Broken Skin [ISBN978 0 00 719317 2] is his third book and its just as good as the others –if not better. Set as usual in the more salubrious parts of Aberdeen, and featuring the unlucky and overworked Logan, his ferocious girlfriend Jackie, the amazingly awful Detective Inspectors Insch and Steel, and an equally luscious supporting cast of misfits with human failings. Wonderfully and blackly funny
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The Death List by Paul Johnston. Serial killer UK 7/10 |
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By bookworm on
8/28/2007 12:52 PM
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Paul Johnston’s crime fiction novel The Death List [ISBN 978 0 7783 0159 2] starts off well – the underlying plot is mesmeric – it is just so weird you are curious to know what is happening – but it does get worse. The plot is all over the place –ripe with menace but less convincing at it proceeds. The characters are quite well drawn though our hero is so thick it’s a wonder he lasts until the end
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The Shadow Walker by Michael Walters. Eastern European (?) crime fiction 8/10 |
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By bookworm on
8/22/2007 8:47 AM
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Michael Walters’ crime/police procedural The Shadow Walker [ISBN-13978 1 84724 080 4] is set in Mongolia, in Ulan Bataar, which gives a very different context than the usual run-of-the mill crime novels. The plot is fine if a bit clunky though people you don’t know about keep appearing which is often a way of cheating the reader, and the narrative does skip about a bit, but the Mongolian policeman is a delight – intelligent, perceptive and intuitive – a regular Poiret.
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My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey. Literary Fiction 4/10 |
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By bookworm on
8/21/2007 8:22 AM
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Peter Carey’s My life as a Fake [CN 118758] is a book of literary fiction by this two-times winner of the Booker Prize. It is the story of an imagined character that appears in real life, and though the book is full of nicely written and evocative passages the thinness of this basic premise becomes quite tedious as the book proceeds.
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Mistress of Justice by Jeffery Deaver. Courtroom thriller 8/10 |
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By bookworm on
8/18/2007 9:37 AM
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Jeffery Deaver’s courtroom/psychological thriller Mistress of Justice [ISBN 978 0 340 82090 2] is much better than the title suggests – the plot set around shenanigans at a Wall Street firm of Attorneys- is nicely complex and only a tad contrived, whilst the characters are as wonderfully varied set of suspects you could wish for. The narrative , like Deaver’s other novels, gives the book quality as it weaves clues and none clues in and out with an excellent and satisfying ending.
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The Collected Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker. Literary-fiction & non-fiction collected works 10/10 |
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By bookworm on
8/16/2007 3:32 PM
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A recent visit to the Edinburgh Fringe and a play featuring the life of Dorothy Parker has led to the purchase of this book – The Collected Dorothy Parker [ISBN 0 14 118258 X] a collection of her short stories, witty poems and one liners and book reviews. Dorothy Parker was so very famous and of her time, and this collection gives glimpses of why that was. She shows acerbic wit, sharp perceptions of people and an underlying sadness. I think my favourite parts are the book reviews
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The Last Testament by Sam Bourne. Grail-search type thriller 8/10 |
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By bookworm on
8/15/2007 8:16 AM
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Sam Bourne’s novel The Last Testament [ISBN 978 0 00 720333 8] is a grail-search type thriller (though the object of the search is old testament not new). Set mainly in Palestine the book is well-researched and has lots of authentic touches of context and situation, the plot is not particularly complex but it has embroidered into it various red herrings, but it’s the way the narrative is chopped about (like much modern fiction of this type) that (rather artificially) creates the suspense. Sometimes you just wish for a straightforward story, but there you go.
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Dying Light by Stuart Macbride. Crime fiction 9/10 |
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By bookworm on
8/14/2007 2:41 PM
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Dying Light the crime fiction novel by Stuart Macbride [ISBN 978 0 00 719316 5] is his second book set in Aberdeen. The jacket blurbs say “gritty” and they’re not joking. The book is a brilliant anarchic police procedural, the plot is complex and full of red herrings, the summer time in Aberdeen does not make his second book any less bleak, and his characters equal Rankin’s (and that’s saying something from a committed Rankin fan).
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Seeking Sanctuary by Frances Fyfield. Thriller/fiction 6/10 |
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By bookworm on
8/13/2007 12:33 PM
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When I read this I thought it must be an early novel, but Seeking Sanctuary by Frances Fyfield [ISBN 978 0 7515 4009 3] is relatively recent (2003). It is a psychological thriller based in a convent and is well-written though the plot is not brilliant, this is to some extent compensated for by the characterisations, unbalanced and strange (with weird backgrounds) as they are.
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One for the Money by Carol Clewlow. Literary Fiction 8/10 |
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By bookworm on
8/12/2007 9:20 AM
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A narrative dating from the 1960s, Carol Clewlow’s novel One for the Money [ISBN 0 14 016984 9] creates the early days of drugs and sex and rock and roll. Told in flash back the rags to riches and back again is simple on one level, but has a deeper, darker and sophisticated treatment of the characters unable to cope with the excesses their wealth brings. It appears truthful and authentic and is a very good read.
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