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The Unquiet by John Connolly. American Crime fiction 7/10 |
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By bookworm on
6/28/2008 8:43 AM
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John Connolly’s The Unquiet [ISBN 978 0 340 92051] took quite a lot of getting into – it is quite dense and nothing much happened at the outset. It’s a brooding, unsettling kind of book, with no little light along the way. Not a bad plot, and the narrative eventually gets going. Quite turgid characters, though he does a good line in heavies and baddies.
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Rat Run by Gerald Seymour. British thriller/adventure 8/10 |
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By bookworm on
6/22/2008 2:37 PM
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Not only does Gerald Seymour write classy adventure/thriller fiction, he also is excels at satisfying endings and Rat Run [ISBN 978 0 552 15342 3] follows this model. A story of redemption that has many twists and turns making it an addictive read. The flashbacks written in italics are only a minor annoyance –they don’t always add very much to the on-going narrative.
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Losing You by Nicci French. British Crime fiction 8/10 |
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By bookworm on
6/21/2008 9:01 AM
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Nicci French is, in my opinion, an accomplished fiction writer, and this book Losing You [ISBN 978 0 141 03541 3] has a good plot, a straightforward, narrative that moves along quite well. Characters are pretty well drawn without being tedious as well. However, it has my most unfavourite story topic – a child abduction, which so upsets and unsettles me I read the book with little pleasure and lots of dread.
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The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke 8/10 |
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By bookworm on
6/18/2008 3:28 PM
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James Lee Burke’s novel The Tin Roof Blowdown [ISBN 978 0 7538 2317 0] is a continuation of his excellent Dave Robicheaux’s stories set in a bayou near New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. It has the usual mix of dubious and interesting characters, though the plot was fine I did find the narrative quite difficult to get into for the first part of the book.
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The Next Accident by Lisa Gardner. American Crime fiction 8/10. |
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By bookworm on
6/14/2008 3:02 PM
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Lisa Gardener’s novel The Next Accident [ISBN 978 1 4070 1309 5] is another novel featuring Rainie Conner as Investigator and her ex-more-than-colleague Pierce Quincy (though this is as ambivalent as relationships get). The book has a good pacy narrative and lots of red herrings as usual.
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Dead Cold by Louise Penny. Canadian crime fiction 9/10 |
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By bookworm on
6/13/2008 3:15 PM
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This is the first time I’ve read a book by Louise Penny –and I’ll be looking at others besides Dead Cold [ISBN 978 0 7553 2893 2] because its such a well-written book. It has an excellent, quite clever plot, and a wonderful context – winter and Christmas in Quebec – an excellent sleuth – Chief Inspector Gamache – and a whole load of rounded and fascinating characters – as well as a pacy narrative.
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Dead Cold by Louise Penny. Canadian crime fiction 9/10 |
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By bookworm on
6/13/2008 3:15 PM
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This is the first time I’ve read a book by Louise Penny –and I’ll be looking at others besides Dead Cold [ISBN 978 0 7553 2893 2] because its such a well-written book. It has an excellent, quite clever plot, and a wonderful context – winter and Christmas in Quebec – an excellent sleuth – Chief Inspector Gamache – and a whole load of rounded and fascinating characters – as well as a pacy narrative.
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Bad Luck and Trouble by Lee Child. Amercian crime fiction 7/10 |
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By bookworm on
6/12/2008 7:26 AM
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Another Lee Child novel in the Jack Reacher series, Bad Luck and Trouble [ISBN 978 0 553 81810 9] follows a similar theme to the others – larger than life Reacher just happening to encounter a wrong that needs righting or someone who needs help from him and his toothbrush (the only thing her carries with him). Reads easily and well through the growing mountain of bodies he and his friends dispose of.
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The Seventh Sacrament by David Hewson. Eurocrime 7/10 |
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By bookworm on
6/10/2008 3:04 PM
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I have really liked David Hewson’s series of novels, set in Rome, with cops Costa, Peroni and Falconi, even though the plots do tend to be complicated and dense, and this latest, the Seventh Sacrament [ISBN 978 0 330 43395 6] is no exception. With a context of the underground city beneath Rome, the split narrative winds backwards and forwards from the past to present day, keeping the reader guessing all the way through – the problem with this kind of narrative, though, is that is it easy to lose the plot in more ways than one. However, a clever book, quite challenging to the reader.
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