Found on the internet 30/07/08

A documentary on the making of Tony Black's Edinburgh based noir debut, Paying For It.

A Double Hit of Moe Prager

Walking the Perfect Square, 978-0-9792709-5-6 $13

And

Redemption Street 978-0-9792709-5-6 (dec’08), $13

By Reed Farrel Coleman, Busted Flush Press, ‘08

It’s been a few years since I read Reed Farrel Coleman’s third Moe Prager novel, The James Deans, but I remember being very impressed by the style and the complex nature of the plot that seemed unusually smart in an era of high concept thrillers whose complexities are often limited to plot twists over any attempt to deepen the narrative.

So I was excited to hear of Busted Flush Press’s plans to reprint the first two novels from the series, Walking the Perfect Square and Redemption Street, both of which are clearly the work of the same writer in the same series, but manage to feel like such different entities that they become more than an attempt to replay what the reader loved the first time round.

Walking the Perfect Square is a near perfect novel; a low key character piece, where ex-NYPD cop Moe Prager finds himself involved in the search for a missing college student. The more Prager digs into the boy’s life, the more he finds contradictions and anomalies that do not so much add to Prager’s impressions as detract from them; rather than building a picture, he winds up deconstructing one.

The dual narrative takes place between 1998 and 1979; a smart move whose pay off is not immediately evident. But like the best novels, its all about the denouement, and as you progress through the novel, you start to realise that the seemingly unrelated modern strand is intensely important, that its only with the passage of time that Moe can gain a true perspective on what he found while investigating Patrick’s life.

It’s a blinding read, and absorbing in a way that feels utterly unexpected. For the first two thirds of the novel, Moe seems to be walking in circles (not squares, per-se, he’ll leave that down to another character in the novel), talking to people, discovering next to zip. But there’s always this hint, this underlying sensation that something is hidden out there. That for all these conversations seem to amount to nothing, there’s more going on than Moe or we can even guess at. And while the slow burn approach could be an unwise choice in less skilled hands, we’re kept on board by Moe’s Chandlerian narration (he twists words and ideas in a way that easily evokes the debt all modern eyes owe to Marlowe) and the sheer conviction of the writing.

And there's a brilliant – near beautiful – pay-off. Barely a moment or a scene is wasted. Everything is wrapped up beautifully, although the end of the novel is hardly a case of the world being restored to order. An air of deep sadness runs through Moe’s narration, and even the twenty year gap between the investigation into Patrick and the secondary thread that runs to the late nineties fails to eliminate that touch of regret from Moe’s narration. And while there is a glimmer of hope – one that could become mawkish in the wrong hands – Coleman is a savvy enough writer to know that a glimmer is enough, that the despair and joy of life rarely balance out.

If there are problems with Walking The Perfect Square, perhaps it comes from overwriting; Coleman is a brilliant writer, but here and there the voice of this first Prager novel feels more like writing and less like natural storytelling. The narration can be dense and perhaps a little overwhelming, but does nothing to affect the overall power and beauty of the work.

But by the time Coleman brings Moe to Redemption Street, he’s got that voice down cold. Redemption Street is a far more accomplished novel, so it’s surprising to read Coleman joke in his newly written afterword that “it was the first book in history to go direct from the printer to the remainder bin”. Perhaps it was the shift of focus that surprised people. Perhaps the market wasn’t ready for a truly reflective eye; an investigative character who was every bit as fleshed out as those people whom he observed. Redemption Street feels more intensely personal – both for the author and the protagonist – than Walking the Perfect Square. Perhaps it’s the focus on Moe’s Jewish heritage – and the guilt that it brings both personally and in a far wider sense – which creates this sense. Perhaps it’s the note of longing for things long lost that plays through Moe’s search to discover what happened to that girl he crushed so deeply on in high school. Whatever it is, the energy of the writing and characterisation brings a sense of empathy to the reader that feels instantly fresh and genuine. While the Moe of Walking the Perfect Square feels almost an enigma – lost in his case, defined merely by his actions – in Redemption Street, we feel closer to him; we experience this case with him rather than through him.

By now, Moe is a more reluctant PI. He’s licensed, but he keeps his badge in a drawer. He’s looking at running a wine store. And it takes a reminder of his own past to make him think about doing anything close to the kind of work he’s licensed to do.

Threads run through from Walking the Perfect Square and seem to explode in this novel; hints dropped from the 1998 narrative are explored deeper here, and as such we feel closer to Moe; the character less distanced to us than in the first novel, where Moe was – despite his distinctive voice – more of a camera on events than an actual participatory subject.

The violence seems ramped up as well, with Moe undergoing torture both in a physical and mental fashion throughout the book. But these moments feel perfectly justified by the novel, which needs to put its protagonist through the ringer in order to achieve its goals. Would we be so attached to Moe if this investigation were a walk in the park? If he weren’t looking backwards as much as forwards?

Its rare to see a series character who develops so well over a series, and kudos to Busted Flush for allowing us to return to the roots of Moe Prager. Reading the series in sequence, we encounter a character who is allowed to grow and mature; whose world becomes clearer the more it is fractured – only when past and present collide do we ever truly understand the events that shape not only our protagonist, but those people who surround him.

Add to this a voice filled with genuine heart, that knows suffering and joy in sometimes unequal measures, and an author whose fiendishly clever plots unfold in such a low key fashion that its easy to be taken by surprise and you have one of the best modern crime series currently being written. It’s a delight to know that readers – like myself – who missed Moe the first time round will have a chance to catch up on these novels; to discover some of the best prose they’ll read in years, and a character whose evolution throughout a series feels so absolutely genuine, you’ll soon be thinking of him as an old friend.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland 30/07/08

PAYING FOR IT by Tony Black

Preface Books, July ’08, 9781848090705, £16.99

We’re living in a new age of noir for the UK. Derek Raymond, Ted Lewis and their ilk were ahead of their time; they would have fitted perfectly into the new underground that is,

Ken Bruen

Ray Banks

Allan Guthrie

Charlie Williams

and others who are redefining the British crime novel and pushing it beyond the self imposed limitations formed by Christie, Rendell and PD James (to name but a few).

The reason I mention the new British noir is simple: here comes an author who reinforces the new wave, who takes the ball and runs with it hell for leather. Tony Black’s voice is clearly influenced by the madcap poetry of Bruen – replete with pop culture references, fragmentation and a bizarre stream-of-consciousness approach that may trip the unwary – but he adds on top of that an undeniably Scots accent; a way of approaching the world that is unashamedly proud of its origins and yet hardly so parochial that no one else would want to read it.

We can probably trace the new wave of Scots noir back to Ian Rankin, who straddled the line between old and new wave: popular enough to be mainstream, dark enough to add a nuance of danger to some of his works. Like Rankin, Black has created a vision of Edinburgh that is at once evocative and entirely his own. While Rankin alluded to a dark underbelly, Black embraces it utterly, shows up the true social divide in Edinburgh with a few simple phrases and an underlying subtext that attempts to show this old setting in a new dark light.

Black’s Edinburgh is a city built on its own mistakes. A city trying desperately to change with the times while glossing over its own mistakes. All the coffee bars and trendy pubs in the world cannot change a dark and violent history, and this is especially true in a place like Edinburgh where traditional Alckie haunts such as the Grassmarket area are trying to haul themselves up into the new and trendy cosmopolitan age.

It’s a struggle reflected in our protagonist, a newspaper reporter who cannot gloss over his own past no matter how hard he tries. A man with a moral compass that’s always being misled by his past, his upbringing, his innate violence. As flawed characters go, Gus Drury comes very close to a new noir stereotype in many ways – particularly his drinking – but is saved by a powerful and personal voice that cuts through the reader’s sympathy and demands a strange kind of empathy. It’s hard to say that Gus is likeable, but its fascinating to see the world through his eyes, to give full reign to the kind of cynicism that slowly pulls a man’s life apart. But there is a core to Gus that has not rotted, and there is where we find our hook into the dark world of Paying For It. Black understands that no character is all good or evil, that there exists merely shades of shadows and that a good man is one who occasionally tries to beat his worst instincts. Is there hope for a man like Gus? Undoubtedly, but it is something that is never assured, and that is what makes his journey so compelling for the reader: there are no moral guarantees here. No constants to be relied upon.

And while Black walks the line close to several noir clichés – the alcoholic lead, the evident corruption that runs through society – he does it all so convincingly, with such a strong voice that you cannot help but keep turning those pages.

Black’s debut novel is incredibly strong; an evocative, unsettling journey to the heart of darkness that is modern Scotland. It works as a psychological journey and as a thrilling descent into the criminal underworld. This is page-turning, addictive stuff from an author who looks set to garner a dedicated readership not only from fans of the UK noir movement, but from readers who will appreciate literate, witty and unsettling fiction told with a voice that demands – and deserves – your utmost attention.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland, 30/07/08

Found on the Internet 05/06/08

Charlie Stella's Sixth Novel Mafiya is the latest from one of Crime Scotland's favourite writers. We've described him as "like Elmore Leonard writing an episode of the Sopranos" and with this novel, he takes a decidedly dark twist in his representation of New York's underworld.

Check it out:

THE COLD SPOT by Tom Piccirilli

Bantam Press, 2008, $6.99, 9780553590845

Chase has been a getaway driver all his life. After the death of his parents, he’s been raised by his grandfather Jonah, brought up in a world of thieves and grifters and con artists. He’s a born driver, but maybe not a born criminal. After witnessing his grandfather’s dispatch of one of his own gang, Chase decides its time to get out.

He never counted on falling in love with a cop.

Building something close to a normal life.

And he really didn’t plan on having all of that taken away.

Tom Piccirilli was the man responsible for last year’s wonderful noir masterpiece, The Fever Kill, and here he turns back to the crime genre again with the incredible, The Cold Spot, a brilliantly paced revenge thriller with a genuinely human heart. When we think of getaway drivers, its easy to think of them being akin to a Parker character: cold, uninvolved and professional. Think what they tried to do with Jason Stratham’s character in the movie, The Transporter or, as a far better example, the character of Lennon in Duane Swierczynski’s The Wheel Man. And, sure, Piccirilli makes Chase an absolute professional, but here he fleshes out that archetype by giving him…

… a life.

The first half of the book, taken up as it is with Chase’s life could seem like so much unnecessary window dressing if it weren’t for the fact that Piccirilli knows how important it is to get us to understand his hero. Any good revenge drama relies on us being on the side of the revenger, understanding his psychology. It has to be more complex than some archetypal revenge fantasy a-la Deathwish if we to truly feel anything. And Piccirilli is a master at helping us to empathise with his cast. He’s been at this game a long time and even his most despicable creations seem to have been at least comprehensible to the reader. But Chase… he must be a good man at heart for this to work. We have to understand him beyond his role as Getaway Driver, and by seeing him leave the life, fall in love, build a normal existence… we are on his side. We know what he has worked for to have all of this. He has given up many things, adjusted his world view, made sacrifices and ultimately – despite his past – he deserves this quiet, peaceful, beautiful new life.

So when it is snatched away by a gang of criminals with itchy trigger fingers, we understand his rage and frustration and loss. We are right there with him. We can feel the sense of, why did this have to happen? Why wasn’t I there to stop this?

And we understand why Chase can only turn to one man for help in finding the cold spot, that place inside of him that will help take revenge like he was taking care of business. We understand why he turns to his grandfather Jonah, the man he took such great pains to leave behind in the first place.

The relationship between Chase and Jonah that takes up much of the second half of the book is a complex and unsettling double act. Jonah represents a dark side of Chase that he doesn’t want have to confront, but is something he must control and use if he is to heal those wounds inside of him. As Chase constantly walks the line between the life he wants and the life that Jonah offers, we find the central conflict of the book, and indeed of any good revenge drama: will the act of revenge change our character beyond recognition? Turn him into the very thing he is reacting against?

It’s a tension that Piccirilli exploits beautifully in the last third of the book without offering any overly easy answers or guarantees of salvation. Indeed anyone who’s read Piccirilli’s work before will know that he doesn’t offer guarantees in his stories. And that uncertainty is what keeps those pages turning.

Throw into the mix some larger themes that set the groundwork for further books in the series. As the story draws to a close, we find some answers about Chase’s life that change everything we thought we knew. We find hints of a darkness that could push him even further over the edge. This is the ideal of a series; resolve the major questions, but leave enough hanging that readers will want to follow you onto the next novel.

The Cold Spot is a gripping and powerful novel from an author who makes fans out of almost everyone who reads his work. The prose hums with a visceral energy that’ll keep you turning those pages. I finished it fast, thought about it for days afterwards. And really, there’s no better recommendation than simply: read this book. But be warned: once you hit that last page, you’ll be dying to read 2009’s The Coldest Mile.

WHAT BURNS WITHIN by Sandra Ruttan

Dorchester Books, 2008, 978-0843960747

When you think of Hardboiled, you probably don’t think of Vancouver. Canada never seems – to us outsiders at any rate – like a crimewave kind of country. But if there’s an author determined to buck the trend, its Sandra Ruttan. While her debut novel, Suspicious Circumstances was set in the US, Ruttan now moves the action north to her homeland, with gripping results. A missing child and a serial aronist would give give most cops nightmares. But for three Vancouver detectives, mere nightmares might seem a picnic compared to what they’ll be facing as they attempt to bring justice to the streets of their city.

What Burns Within marks the first of a sequence of novels set among the Vancouver police department, focussing specifically on three officers whose lives and cases are about to become seriously twisted. The focus is – befitting Ruttan’s strengths – on character and a great deal of effort has gone into ensuring the cast of What Burns Within live and breathe beyond the page. As is always the case, some people stick with you more than others. Here, its Detective Ashlyn Hart who seems to steal the show. Perhaps in part because she has some of the most difficult choices to make, but she emerges as the standout of the central trio of characters by evoking a genuine sense of empathy with the reader.

But while Ruttan is a natural for sketching tough and believable characters, she doesn’t allow her writing to rest on that alone. Anyone writing procedure has to ensure that the reader is convinced by the investigation, and its here that Ruttan’s smart approach shines. Subtle touches add authenticity to proceedings. Little things, such as the way she refuses to let her cop protagonists into a burned out building, something that some authors would be tempted to fudge for the sake of “poetic licence”. But Ruttan works hard to find unique ways to overcome these problems. One particular scene involving Lt Hart, a bucket lift and one heckuva scary drop emerges as particularly memorable.

The plot itself is often heartwrenching. Placing a child at the centre of a story is often a cheap way of tugging at the heartstrings, but Ruttan manages to mix in the emotional with the realistic, a ploy immediately brought into play with the opening scene that sees a girl losing her younger brother at a fairground. The scene plays with a kind of realistic childhood – not too cute, not too cynical – and there’s a feeling of deep unease by the end of the scene that is paid off in spades as the book progresses. Ruttan plays about with innocence and guilt in unexpected ways, and nuances even her young cast in such a way that the children are far more than mere ciphers or metaphors in the way many writers would use them.

It’s rare that a writer can combine character and procedural effectively, but Ruttan manages to create an emotionally invested thriller that also feels grounded in real – if somewhat dramatic – policework. The attention to detail helps add weight to the fictional world Ruttan has created. And while there are certain near obligatory investigative scenes included, the details and the characters move them beyond standard set pieces. In fact, Ruttan offers a kind of unpredictability that is rare in standard procedurals. While heroes are often complex characters, it is rare that we think they might not solve the case or save the day. Here, Ruttan manages to manipulate her audience into a kind of uncertainty over how events might turn out, and in doing so creates an air of realism that solidifies the novel and its world.

It helps that Ruttan’s smooth style – far more confident here than in her debut – flows particularly well, creating the kind rhythm that grips the reader and keeps them flipping those pages. Pace and style count for a lot, and What Burns Within has both in spades.

Ruttan combines devilishly clever plots with genuinely empathic characters. What Burns Within is a taught, confidently told character-led thriller, with Ruttan’s natural style shining through. And when you turn that last page, you’ll be itching for more from not simply the author herself, but the intriguing cast… who are begging for further exploration, and are slated to return in the second novel, The Frailty of Flesh.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland.com, 29/05/08

Found on the internet 29/05/08

Tony Black's excellent debut novel, Paying For It has its own trailer which we ripped from youtube for your viewing pleasure.

A review is coming soon.

A Double Dose of Stuart MacBride

Sawbones by Stuart MacBride, Barrington Stoke, £5.99, 978-1842995297, July 2008

Flesh House by Stuart MacBride, HarperCollins, £12,99, 978-0007244546, May 2008

As much as we love series characters here at Crime Scene Scotland, it’s always nice to see an author taking a break. Even one akin to a weekend getaway such as Stuart MacBride’s novella, Sawbones.

Like Allan Guthrie’s Kill Clock before it, Sawbones is a book written for “emerging readers”. This entails a set of guidelines about the language and style used in the book, but the story itself must be engaging to an adult audience.

And Macbride knows about writing for adults.

Moving from his usual stomping grounds of Aberdeen and out into the wilds of America, MacBride seems to be relishing the opportunity to truly let himself go. The sheer joy of throwing out the “McRae” rulebook is evident from the opening pages where we’re right in the head of a mafia thug about to kill a cop. But, see, he’s got his reasons. They’re out looking for the boss’s daughter. Who’s been abducted. By a serial killer.

Looking for nice guys in this novella?

They’re few and far between.

Which is what gives the book its appeal. While Stuart rarely makes his Grampian Police into perfect heroes, he has rarely been allowed to let himself go so completely as here. There is a core of – somewhat twisted – morality to the two goons out on the road, and the killer himself… well, you ain’t finding no sympathy here. Sure, he’s a little bit of the loony-tunes cliché, but as ever MacBride is having fun playing with archetypes and the killer is recognisably an archetype – with his bible bashing and woman-hating – but still very chilling indeed. But these are characters with the kind of screwed morality that makes them truly fascinating. And the protagonists are decidedly anti-heroes in the best possible sense of the word.

But it’s the pacing that works here, and with brevity being the soul of wit, MacBride’s lean and muscular novella doesn’t give the reader time to breathe. The pages turn fast and easy, and while the storytelling is relatively straightforward, MacBride never panders to his audience, creating a taut and terrifying tale that roars across the dusty highways of the US in a blood-soaked Winnebago.

And with his wanderlust somewhat satisfied, it means that MacBride can then return – with batteries recharged – to his familiar homeground of Aberdeen. Yes, we’re back with DS McRae and, yes, Grampian police are – despite the warnings from DI Steele – most definitely at home to Mr Fuck Up.

It’s the sheer energy of his work that makes MacBride’s homegrown procedurals shine. If were in any doubt before, then Broken Skin confirmed that the world of McRae and co is a hyper-realised one, where a grim and black humour permeates near every sentence.

And with Flesh House, the humour is grim indeed.

More than any ever MacBride novel before it, the violence here is fairly explicit. Its been enough to turn some early readers vegetarian, but MacBride manages the fairly neat trick of offsetting the violence with gallows humour while never cheapening the loss of life.

In MacBride’s world, almost a decade earlier, Aberdeen was plagued by a killer known simple as “The Flesher”. A man who ate human flesh, slaughtered people like farm animals. And was finally arrested by Grampian Police. But now he’s out on bail… and the killing’s started again.

There’s something very chilling about MacBride’s latest novel, and the tension is ratcheted up superbly with a number of subtle red herrings laid in place. But the crime itself is not what impresses itself upon the reader; rather it’s the movement of the characters in MacBride’s world. With Steele given her chance to shine in Broken Skin, this time we see a whole new side to sweetie-munching DI Insch, who manages to both repel and engage the reader within the space of a single sentence. Its hard to say much without giving the game away, but MacBride is savvy enough to throw life-changing events at his characters without pressing a red reset button at the end of the tale, something that happens all too often in series fiction.

If there’s anything wrong, its that Logan McRae himself gets short shrift, with some intriguing personal developments getting lip service, but barely making inroads to the plot. Of course, even in a book this size, some concessions must be made, but the relationship between McRae and Jackie Watson which had a dramatic shift at the end of Broken Skin seems to be pushed into the background when it seems like some very interesting developments may have taken place.

But, what’s important is that Flesh House moves fast and furious – surprisingly so for such a hefty novel – and is genuinely engrossing, replete with moments of gallows humour that relieve the intensity of some scenes. This is a novel that doesn’t let up from the word go, and its almost surprising that MacBride can retain that incredible pace through the novel. Perhaps because, even if he is working within the McRae rulebook, he’s still finding ways to try and subvert the traditions he’s writing in. There are shifts towards the horror genre as one character breaks down almost entirely, and MacBride shows that despite his occasional broad strokes – the early characterisation of Insch in books one and two is a fine example – he can do very a very convincing and unnerving psychological portrait of his cast, and he seems to be at his very best when he puts the characters right at the very limits of their endurance. Witness not just Insch here, but also a character who finds herself at the very heart (if you’ll pardon what could be construed as a pun) of The Flesher’s scheme.

MacBride has, in four books, established himself a writer with a style and voice that distinguish him from the herd. His books are procedurals in form, but he manages to give them an edge that pulls in those readers who would usually be reluctant to read novels given that label. It’s the Scots humour, the sheer ballsiness of his approach to the genre and the fact that he somehow gives these large novels a momentum that propels the reader through the twists and turns without once giving them pause for breath.

If you haven’t read MacBride, we say: go and read him. Today. But, if you’re unprepared for that Aberdeen weather, we might just recommend an umberella.

Small disclaimer: eagle eyed and cynical readers will notice Russel D McLean’s name appear briefly in Flesh House. This was a fact unknown to the reviewer before he started reading and while he is always immensely flattered by such things, it does not prevent him from approaching the novel with his usual steely intensity.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland.com, 29/05/08

The books we missed: 2007

As ever, 2007 was a year where we ended up playing Catch Up and missed out on some reviews we wished we’d got round to sooner. Here’s our selection of novels we wish we hadn’t missed reviewing in 2007:

When One Man Dies by Dave White, Three Rivers Press, 978-0307382788, $13.95

Jackson Donne is an ex cop, looking for the quiet life, spending time as a PI in New Jersey. He doesn’t expect to be there when a drinking buddy gets smashed in a hit and run, and he sure doesn’t expect the chaos that ensues when he decides to get involved.

Dave White may be a newcomer to the novel format, but he’s hardly a new voice to those who follow the genre closely. His short stories have been nominated for several awards and won at least one of them. So it’s a treat to see him move onto the novel form with this brisk, complex and entertaining debut.

White respects the traditions of the PI genre while simultaneously adding a modern thriller twist to proceedings. There’s an element of the old-school PI writers in White’s voice, a nod to those who have gone before. But White wisely tries not to overdo this and his voice owes as much (perhaps moreso) to writers like Michael Connelly and Jeffrey Deaver as it does to past masters such as Ross McDonald and Robert B Parker. It’s a mixture of the wise-ass and the everyman that helps keep the reader on Jackson’s side, creating a protagonist who could easily grow to become a fan-favourite.

Indeed, its character that sticks in mind here. Having explored Jackson Donne in previous short stories, White knows this character well enough to keep the reader involved and intrigued by his narration. And with Donne’s past life increasingly intruding on the present, his character evolves as the novel progresses. Donne looks like he could shape up to be an intriguingly complex protagonist over the course of a proposed series; indeed the second novel is due out in the next few months.

White manages to clearly and effectively delineate his twin point of view characters highlighting contrasts and similarities effectively. Of course, the narrative switch from first to third person – alternating as it does between Jackson and his possibly sociopathic ex-partner – is still occasionally jarring, despite the fact that both Jackson and his nemesis (who will, no doubt, continue to deteriorate as the series progresses) are equally intriguing characters. The flow in Jackson’s narration works better than the third person technique in the second narrative, perhaps because White is more accustomed to Jackson’s voice.

When One Man Dies is a damn fine read, a hell of a debut with a heart and soul that bodes very well indeed for future instalments in the series, and more importantly for White’s versatility as an author. It is a welcome addition to the reawakening (if it was ever asleep in the first place) PI genre (that’s two very promising series from ’07, now, beginning with Sean Chercover’s first Ray Dudgeon novel and continuing here) and a thriller that’s set to grab the attention of fans of Robert B Parker, Lawrence Block and Dennis Lehane.

Baby Sharks Beaumont Blues by Robert Fate, Capital Crime Press, 978-0977627622, $14.95

Robert Fate’s second entry in his Baby Shark series picks off where Baby Shark left off, with Kirsten Van Dijk settling firmly into her new role as a PI in 1950’s America. It’s a bold move setting a female protagonist in that era of America’s past, particularly one so young.

But it’s a move that this reviewer feels isn’t properly explored in either of the first two BabyShark novels, which is a shame because it would give the novels a new and different kind of edge. Robert Fate is a strong writer and his characterisation works well, but what is missing – and possibly required – from this series to push it over from good read to fantastic is a stronger sense of place and time.

James Ellroy wrote of noir being “history and politics” and its something this reviewer subscribes to strongly in the case of any historical novel. The weakness of the Baby Shark series that Fate has the opportunity to explore a hardboiled 1950’s setting through a female protagonist, but fails to properly use this in a dramatic sense. There is very little, aside from a few cultural references – the lack of modern technology and the gentlemanly courtship of local cop Lee – that truly marks the era throughout both Baby Shark and Baby Shark’s Beaumont Blues.

Which sounds like a big gripe, but Fate makes up for it all with an extremely strong narrative drive, a compelling voice and an intriguing set of characters placed at the forefront of the novel. Kirsten herself, being our point of view character, is a resiliently moral character who isn’t afraid to break a few heads. Again, slightly odd for a 1950’s setting, but with her need for revenge being set up in Baby Shark, by now you’re ready just to fly with it, to see her take on the bad guys. Like Kirsten’s PI mentor, Otis, there’s something pleasingly simple and old fashioned about the series with its strongly delineated characters, a definite moral core (although the good guys can walk in the shadows, there is no question of their ultimate goodness in a world which could rot them through) and a straight-ahead narrative that showcases Fate’s background in making movies. There is a very filmic sense of pacing, designed to keep you turning pages. And it works.

Ultimately, Baby Shark’s Beaumont Blues is a fast paced thriller with a kick-ass protagonist. I would hope that future instalments might explore the period in more detail, but for a damn fine read, Fate delivers the goods, with strong character work and a fast paced narrative perfectly befitting his heroine.

Heroes often Fail By Frank Zafiro Aisling Press, 978-1934677162

The second novel in Zafiro’s River City series focuses on a missing girl and the attempts by cops to find her. An ex cop himself, we’ve already noted that Zafiro has a good handle on investigative techniques and as he finds his feet with this second novel, his world of cops begins to feel more grounded and believable.

The case itself is intriguing enough, a way of holding together Zafiro’s otherwise disparate cast, although there is still a feeling that perhaps the pages are still a little overcrowded with cop characters vying for attention and sympathy and as such there are no standouts, which does to depersonalise the affair just a little. Although it is clear that characters like Detective Kopriva are itching to take centre stage. That is, if he’s around any more after the climactic – and, dramatically speaking, rather risky – events that spark the conclusion of Heroes Often Fail.

Its hard to explain the ending of Heroes often Fail without going into spoiler territory, and a large part of what makes the ending work is the fact that it is as surprising as it is inevitable. It is an everyday sense of tragedy that marks Zafiro’s background as an ex-cop; The Job is a struggle against odds that can often seem utterly

The missing girl scenario, being big and far-reaching in an emotional sense, is more important here to the reader – and therefore more compelling – than the stick up artist who plagued the cops during the first novel. There is less of a feeling of dissociation between various characters and their goals; everyone is united in what might be a hopeless cause – finding this girl alive. This lends the novel a greater weight, and helps marks out Kopriva as the character to watch. Zafiro uses him as an anchor for the frustration the police must feel in a case that demands emotional attachment and that distracts from an ordered, levelled form of investigation.

However, some of this emotional resonance feels as though it is being held back by the decision to play out the girl’s abduction – from her point of view – alongside the police investigation. Although some of these sequences are undeniably powerful – with implication rather than explication showing us the terrible nature of this crime – they ultimately water down the tension for the reader – we are aware of where the girl is and what is happening to her – and finally dilute the emotional pay off of the cop’s investigation when we are aware of what has happened long before they discover the truth.

We're still waiting for Zafiro's voice to start singing, to truly separate itself from other procedurals, but there is a great deal of promise and here we can see Zafiro stretching himself further as a writer, although there is a sense he is still holding back, focussing too much on writing rather than letting his voice sing out loud from the page. But his confidence and versatility is growing, and there are moments where the novel takes off, especially as the climax roars into view.

Heroes Often Fail rousingly trumps Under a Raging Moon; a solid, effective and occasionally affecting novel from a writer who knows not only the job, but the gruelling toll certain cases can take on the victims and those charged with upholding law and order.

On The Wrong Track by Steve Hockensmith, St Martin’s Minotaur, 978-0312372880, $12.95

Hockensmith strikes gold again with his second tale featuring the amiable (and often amazing) Amingleyer brothers, Big Red and Old Red, who fancy themselves as somewhat of a western Holmes and Watson. On The Wrong Track is a blistering adventure for the brothers who find themselves charged with protecting the trains that run across the old west and in the midst of a dangerous predicament when they tangle with bandits and, even worse, in what for me is one of the defining sequences of the novel, a deadly African snake.

What strikes home most with Hockensmith’s work is the extremely powerful narrative voice. You can hear Old Red clear as a bell narrating in a downright friendly manner as he imparts on the often alarming matter of his brother’s deducifyin’ business. Yeah, it may be that Hockensmith fella’s name on the front, and he may have tidied up the narrative somewhat, but this is the work of Otto Aminglmeyer through and through.

So what with the voice and the sheer joyful nature of the enterprise, this is a book that can most definitely be described as a romp. But don’t be fooled by any of it because the real trick lies in the very tone of the tale. Sure, there are laughs to be had, but the reader is never laughing at the characters so much as the situations they find themselves in. The boys may get in some stupid situations, but they themselves are never actually stupid. Far from it, they come out of the affair with dignity intact and that’s what makes this series so darn intriguing and addictive, the fact that the characters are so deeply drawn in a series that could have been all about the surface elements and little else.

On The Wrong Track is one of the most original and enjoyable novels of 2007. It plays off a premise that could be one note, creating an unexpectedly rich and fascinating narrative from something that, in the wrong hands, could have quickly become a stale joke. Hockensmith is a talented editor for Otto Aminglmeyer’s fascinating tales of the Old West, and together they have created one of the most quirky, original, amusing, surprisingly human and – most importantly – damnably entertaining new crime series of the past few years.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland.com, 29/05/08

Found on the Internet 29/05/08

Mark Billingham's DEATH MESSAGE was the last Thorne novel, while Billingham takes a break for a superb standalone IN THE DARK (we hope to have a review later in the year, but we've already read it and it is excellent). Here's a trailer to celebrate the release of DEATH MESSAGE in paperback....

MAFIYA By Charlie Stella

Pegasus Books, $25, 978-1933648651

In tems of tone, Stella’s previous novels have been mostly described as darkly humorous, bearing particular comparison to the works of Elmore Leonard. The exception to this was Stella’s dark second outing, Jimmy Bench Press, a novel which attempted to probe the inherent darkness in Stella’s world more deeply than his other works.

Like Leonard, Stella refuses to allow himself to be pigeonholed and with his sixth novel, Mafiya, he abandons some of the lighter aspects from novels such as Cheapskates and Charlie Opera, doing so this time with a ferocity and complexity that not only takes the reader by surprise but also drags them willingly into the dark world Stella creates. Like, for example, Elmore Leonard’s novel, Killshot, the shift in tone from what the reader might expect is marked and surprisingly effective.

The banter with which Stella has made his name is not missing, but is pushed more into the background, creating a decidedly more sombre tone. Not that his ear for dialogue has gone – he’s still the best in the business – but he knows instinctively the kind of tone he’s shooting for and as such his characters are more introspective here, less prone to cracking wise than they were before. Not that the novel is entirely devoid of humour. His cast of prostitutes, Russian Mafioso and police detectives have a particularly grim sense of humour that serves as a release from the dark subject matter both for them and for us. And while his Russian dialogue at times threatens to teeter over into a kind of strange stereotyping (but thankfully stays the right side of believable, the comic relief never overtaking the character), it’s a testament that he makes these characters come so completely to life through their interaction and dialogue.

The plot itself is not for the squeamish, delving into the world of prostitution, snuff movies and various other nasty pieces of business. As ever Stella does not paint simple morality tales, but lets his characters tell their own tale without pushing his own agenda too hard.

In fact, it’s a testament to Stella’s artistry that he makes Agnes Lynn – an ex-hooker trying to turn her life around – into such a compelling and empathetic character. She’s not quite the “hooker with a heart of gold”, thank God, but she is intriguing and alluring. It’s not hard to see why her on-off lover is at once attracted and repelled by parts of her personality.

In fact, the novel does a very good job of making the darker aspects of Lynn’s life – specifically her involvement in the sex trade – less sensationalised than a lesser writer may have attempted. There is tragedy in her story, sure, but ultimately her motivations and her attitude to the world come from a very human place and are rarely melodramatically presented to the reader. She’s a grounded character, takes everything in her stride as best she can and this is what ultimately creates our empathy and connection with her. Her own “crimes” are simply very human mistakes, one which anyone could make given the right set of circumstances.

Agnes’s world is thrown into turmoil when one of her friends is used for a movie and then thrown into the ocean. The crime is graphic and disturbing, and yet Stella uses as much implication as he does explication, making the sequence more disturbing than out and out gruesome. Psychological rather than physical pain makes the scene ultimately unsettling to read and yet fully justified in light of the feelings it evokes.

Mafiya is a fast, dark and compelling novel from an author whose work, if there is any justice, will be being read years from now as one of the classic authors of modern crime fiction. It’s already been said that Stella deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the greats of the genre, but as he proves his versatility and ability with this, his sixth novel, such statements become superfluous: Stella may just be the best crime writer you have yet to discover. His novels are imbued with an essential humanity, and an understanding that sometimes the world just throws us a curveball and all we can do is try our best to survive.

Like Agnes Lynn.

Russel McLean for Crime Scene Scotland, 05/04/08

Buy Mafiya: A Novel of Crime from Amazon.co.uk

Found on the Internet, 05/04/08

In an attempt to keep more regular content, we're going to occasionally present crime fiction related videos and findings from the internet. Promotional material, interviews, whatever we can find.

All copyright for videos remains with the creators.

In this edition, we present:

An online chat with Steven Torres, author of the incredible noir tale, The Concrete Maze:



And promotional material for Allan Guthrie's brilliantly dark Savage Night (review forthcoming) which, it should be said, contains reference to unsettling violence right from the start:

THE CLEANER by Brett Battles

Preface Publishing, £6.99, ISBN 978-1848090071

Jonathan Quinn is a cleaner. The guy you never see. The guy who comes in, makes sure that you never know the truth. He’s not there when the action goes down. But he makes sure the action never happened. He’s cool. Confident. Always in control.

Until now.

Brett Battles’ debut novel is a superb example of thriller writing. And it surprises with a unique protagonist, something quite unusual in the genre. This isn’t the story of the master spy or the expert soldier, but the guy who cleans up after the work is done. The clandestine nature of Jonathan Quinn’s work makes for an instantly unusual premise even if you’re aware from the word go that this particular clean up is going to be anything but smooth.

But smooth is what Quinn likes. He’s a very buttoned up character. He’s procedure and method and control. As events spin inevitably into chaos, he is plucked up and out of his comfort zone, forced to make snap decisions and judgements. One suspects its precisely the kind of thrills his protégé signed on board for, but Quinn knows that thrills are short lived and that real danger is not something to be anticipated or savoured.

Quinn is a fascinating character in this way. Battles does an excellent job of keeping him all business and yet subtly revealing a more personal and human side to his character. More than a great deal of characters in the genre, Quinn feels flawed and human in a great many respects even if he tries to pretend that he isn’t.

Like Lee Child, Zoe Sharp and Simon Kernick, Brett Battles deals with fast prose, fast action and the kind of scenarios that wouldn’t feel out of place in the best action movies. His protagonist is morally dubious, but ultimately righteous, and his bad guys are truly bad. Of course, there are shades of grey thrown expertly into the mix, but while there is a depth to the characters here, the moral philosophising is kept to a minimum. Although Battles doesn’t shy away from the impact of violence, he rarely dwells on its nature or lingers too long on the long-term psychological impact. This is not a psycho-drama; it is pure action-adventure. A definite thriller. We are in no doubt as to who we are rooting for. And in the end, there’s a great satisfaction in seeing the good guys kick some ass.

Not that Battles makes things easy for his protagonists. There is, thank goodness, a genuine sense of danger here – one that escalates as the novel progresses. And although much of the plot becomes personal, Battles does his best to ensure it never becomes overly hokey or coincidental. A lot of this is down to solid character work and superior pacing. Very little here rings false and it’s a testament to Battles’ skill as a writer how fast the pages are turned.

As with, say, the Bond novels, much of the appeal of The Cleaner lies in its globe-trotting storyline. From the US to Vietnam to Belgium, Battles makes the most of his locations and gives the novel an epic sweep that feels incredibly filmic in its nature.

Indeed, it is clear that this is a novel based on the language of film. This is a blockbuster, no doubt about it. And it is to Battles’ credit that when the action does hot up, his smooth, clinically efficient prose is up to the challenge.

Is there a problem in that Quinn falls very neatly into the range of characters who come under the shadow of the mighty Jack Reacher juggernaut? Although Quinn is a separate and distinct creation, there is a feeling that comparisons may be made either fairly or unfairly. For this reader’s money, Quinn seems a more interesting character than Reacher, one who may perhaps have the potential to undergo a multi-book arc and perhaps adjust his attitude, perceptions and lifestyle as the series progresses rather than essentially resetting after every book. Also, Quinn feels more human than a character like Reacher ever could. By giving the man obvious flaws, making him more ordinary – just a guy doing his job – Battles grants Quinn a kind of empathy that more superheroic characters struggle with. He has the potential to be much more than a simple archetype.

The Cleaner is a brilliantly paced, expertly realised thriller. And Battles – with pitch-perfect prose and a real feel for the pulse-pounding, globe-trotting thriller – is an author who doesn’t simply show promise, but feels like he’s going to be around for a long time to come.

Russel McLean for Crime Scene Scotland, 05/04/08

Buy The Cleaner from Amazon.co.uk

NO MORE HEROES by Ray Banks

Polygon, February 2007, £9.99, ISBN 978-1846970139

It seems almost like a tradition that each year we write a near love letter to the work of Ray Banks. His Cal Innes series had an incredible start with Saturday's Child, and somehow expanded and improved upon itself with Donkey Punch and with the third installment, No More Heroes, Banks continues to prove his worth not simply as a crime author, but a novellist with something to say about the dark heart of modern Britain. So let's get the punchline out of the way: No More Heroes is likely to be among the best British Crime Novels of this year. In fact, scratch the likely. This is crime writing at its most powerful, the way we wish it could be all the time.

What marks this series out from many others is the willingness of the author to not only create a fairly selfish and asborbed lead character - despite his protestations to the contrary, Cal Innes isn't any kind of traditional hero - but to allow him to grow (and not neccasarily up) as a character. This doesn't mean he learns any lessons, conciously or otherwise, but rather that you feel he is not quite the same by the end of the novel as he was at the beginning and, even more surprisingly, he carries that into the next book of the series. Cal Innes makes mistakes, changes his mind, acts unreasonably, frequently does the wrong thing when the right thing is staring him in the face... this isn't the action of your typical British lead. Its not the action of your typical crime lead. Its the action of a character who's had the strait-jacket of dramatic convention removed. Oh, this isn't your granny's crime fiction.

Cal Innes's scars are not simply physical - although he could take the prize for most abused character in crime fiction history, making even Ken Bruen's creation Jack Taylor seem like a man whose life is all happiness and sunshine - but also mentally. He reacts to bad situations by building up his psychological armour, by subscribing further to his own deluded fantasies about his own self. He rebuilds and recreates himself. He lies. And worse, believes these lies himself.

His addiction to prescription medication should take the blame for much of this, but that's only one facet of Cal's self-harming policy. He seems to throw himself deeper and deeper into bad situations, mixing with bad people because he then has an excuse for thinking, I'm better than this. Working for a slum landlord is a step down from his ofty ambitions to be a PI at the beginning of Saturday's Child, but its easier for Cal to cope with, making someone else's fuck-ups rather than his own. The fact that he doesn't even like his employer - sleazy dodgy-dealer, Mr Plummer - is only one more symptom of Cal's search for a hard-luck story. He deliberately seeks out the bad work, the dodgy work, the down-at-heel life because then he doesn't have to blame himself. He can maintain his personal fantasies about being a good guy in a bad situation.

But Banks throws Cal a real curveball here, turning him into an accidental hero when he saves a bunch of students - and Cal can't even stand the bastards - from a house fire. He briefly becomes something of a local celebrity, even starts up his PI business again, albeit due to his running off at the mouth when interviewed by the local paper rather than through any real sense of ambition. But he doesn't become a hero. Oh no, that would be pat and simple. And Banks doesn't like to offer such neat turn arounds or developments. To do so would be a betrayal of everything that has made this series - even in such a short time - one of the most complex and intriguing sequences of novels that modern British crime writing has had to offer.

Instead he offers hard questions about choice and responsibility, a running theme through his work. Cal's new status brings with it a responsibility that he simply can't face up to. Its a responsibility other characters - very specifically Paulo, who runs the local lad's club - seem to recognise and encourage Cal to embrace, but its clear he doesn't fully understand the opportunity that's been thrown his way. He's still - as in Saturday's Child - confusing a kind of play-acting (as a PI, as a local hero) with real responsibility and accountability. He can say all the right words when he wants, but its rare that he has the follow through and you soon realise this is because he doesn't want to face the truth of his situation.

Banks's work - like the best kind of crime novels - is focussed very strongly on character. But more than most, these characters feel very real and conflicted. Many writers use weaknesses in their characters to highlight strengths, or to simply provide a degree of dramatic tension where Banks uses character as far more than plot device, allowing his cast to create an absolute illusion of reality and the sense that - quite literally - anything could happen to them.

And it helps that he uses them to disguise his themes rather than bring them directly to the surface. Part of the novel deals explicitly with right wing movements, but does so without ever once feeling like an "issue led" plot line. While Cal feels disgust at the attitude of certain characters - particularly the appallingly middle class woman who asks him to sign her petition in the supermarket - it is more an extension of the character than a substitute for the author. Banks is an expert at subtext, allowing his concerns to bubble gently beneath the surface so that when you start discussing character and action in the novel you suddenly realise that - without ever intending to - you're talking about far larger issues.

Indeed, there are few writers who truly capture modern, urban Britain with the authenticity and sobriety of Ray Banks. Nothing about the setting feels hysterical or reactionary. More, it feels solid and recognisable; a portrait of the UK as seen from the street level. The move away from this setting in Donkey Punch only highlights the grim nature of urban life in Britain as seen here, and the contrast between the near dreamlike City of Angels seen during Cal's excursion and the gritty, shitty concrete world in which he finds himself working for a slum landlord is startling and affecting.

This is a crime novel grounded in the real world. We've praised Banks before for shying away from serial killers and grand schemes and No More Heroes continues this tradition of showing us a world that feels concretely real. The far right "villains" aren't scheming, manipulative geniuses so much as they are fools who try to justify their anger against others. The coppers aren't out trying to solve that one big crime so much as they are part of the background, probably taken up more with paperwork than law and order. Drug dealers aren't neccasarily evil so much as businessmen, and thugs aren't always evil as much as daft - perhaps even coming close to "lovable" (or as close as one can in a Banks novel) with the brilliant supporting character of Daft Frank, who complements Innes perfectly in their work together for Plummer. The fact is that Banks, rather than writing a crime novel, is actually chronicling the street level society of modern Britain with a brutal honesty that sets up questions about the world without ever offering pat answers.

There are no moral absolutes. There are merely people, their hopes, fears and delusions.

This is noir.

This is No More More Heroes.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland, 6/03/08

BURIAL GROUND by John Rickards

Penguin Books, £7.99, ISBN 978-0141021171

With each installment of his series featuring ex-FBI agent Alex Rourke, John Rickards seems to be attempting a different feel while keeping the same characters in believable circumstances. 2005's The Touch of Ghosts was a well written PI story with a personal angle and a couple of intriguing scenes - specifically the single gunshot and the possibility of Rourke being able to say goodbye to someone he loved - that marked it out from the crowd. 2007's The Darkness Inside slipped gears to become a Cobenesque thriller of a man caught up in increasingly insane circumstances that seem wildly beyond his control and in his latest novel, Burial Ground, Rickards plays with the "survival horror" genre that has often been used in movies and video games, but rarely in novels.

There are noteable exceptions, of course. David Morrell attempted to put a group of character in an isolated situation with his highly succesful Creepers and Scavengers, but even if these books went over well with readers, this reviewer was left somewhat cold by characters who seemed to service the plot more often than they engaged as people, and specifically in Scavengers there was a sense that the author knew a great deal about the genre and the subject matter but didn't particularly have the kind of heartfelt enthusiasm that convinces a reader to believe in a novel.

The setup here is intriguing: Rourke recieves a note asking him to find "the crosses" or more people will die. It sounds like the kind of mad quest a James Patterson serial killer might construct, and Rourke isn't so dumb as to ignore the possibility of a madman behind the note, so sets off to find the person who wrote the note in an isolated midwestern community. Trapped in a bar with a group of disparate individuals, a storm blowing the roads to hell and preventing any contact with the outside world, Rourke soon realises there may be a killer in their midst. The question is who? And are they the same person who wrote the note?

In this kind of story - where a group of people are isolated from the rest of the world in a dangerous situation - character should be vitally important. The stakes should be high and personal. Video games get away with using the player as a central character, creating a false sense of idetification. Movies use THX and impressive light shows to distract from concerns and pull in the viewer. Novels must use the psychological nature of these situations to their advantage.

Its a trick that, for the most part, Rickards manages well. Alex Rourke has been previously established as a man of convictions and morality who sometimes walks in shadows. We can identify with his good intentions and the ways in which he sometimes strays from these. At the start of this novel, we have some indication that he is troubled by some of his past choices, particularly those he made in The Darkness Inside. These come mostly from strange momentary hallucinations where he seems to envision himself in a world rotted from the inside out, trying desperately to save an innocent girl from some threat he cannot comprehend. The doctors - and the readers - know exactly what symbolism to take from this and its a pity that Rickards swiftly seems to forget this aspect of ourke's psychology at the novels midway point where no real resolution is reached.

Luckily, while this intriguing aspect of the character is swiftly dropped it does nothing to diminish the rapport we have built with him across the course of the novel and by the time we realise that these "hallucinations" or dreams, whatever they are, have become non-existent we are invested in Rourke's fate as well as those trapped with him.

Rickards is a relatively young novelist (in fact not much older than your reviewer), and as such provides a degree of easy pop-culture cool that drop convincingly into the narrative. Given the nature of the story, there are horror references a plenty including an appearance from the bridge out of the Evil Dead movies, while Rourke's visions are clearly a reference to the survival horror video game series, Silent Hill. The MacBride clan (named for fellow crime writer, Stuart MacBride, a joke that is wisely not overplayed) seem to reference any number of backwoods horror movies, and made this particular reviewer think specifically of the Jack Ketchum novel, Off Season. Although for every cliche he throws in, Rickards is smart enough to throw an extra curve ball that is especially surprising and welcome with the MacBride subplot.

Burial Ground is a smart thriller with some surprising elements thrown into the mix. At times, Rickards seems to let go of ideas just when they become intriguing, but he succeeds in crafting a page-turner of a book with a protagonist just the right side of moral and a cast of supporting characters who can surprise the reader as much as they do Alex Rourke. It whips along at a snappy pace, and the sense of isolation is effectively unnerving. Rickards is a writer with some serious chops, who adapts and grows with each book. And as to the blurb on the back about this being an update of Christie's And Then There Were None? No. Its much, much better than that.

Russel McLean for crimescenescotland, 05/03/08

Get Burial Ground at Amazon.co.uk

THE FEVER KILL By Tom Picirilli

Creeping Hemlock Press, 2007, 978-0976921745, $16.95,

Hands up, straight out of the box, let me admit I have more than a soft spot for Piccirilli’s work. In 2006, I first read Headstone City which was not only a perfectly formed chiller, but also an excellent story about organised crime. I went back to read A Choir of Ill Children, which is one of the most insane horror novels – and its real horror, horrors of the mind rather than simple ghoulish grotesquery (although there is plenty of grotesquery, albeit much of it oddly beautiful and touching compared to the terrors of the everyday; something that only Southern gothic seems to able to achieve).

The Fever Kill is probably the first “straight” crime novel from Piccirilli, a tale of an undercover cop who’s finally snapped. A man who must face up not only to the mistakes he’s made on the job, but the mistakes he’s made his whole life. And the mistakes his own father may have made.

It’s a doom laden tale, with a galloping sense of the inevitable; from the moment we meet Crease, we know that his tale can’t end well. He’s a man who’s seen and done things that would have killed anyone else long ago. And maybe that would have been a mercy.

In the best noir tradition, The Fever Kill has a nightmare intensity. Emotions are ramped, and guilt seeps through the soul of every character we encounter. Of course, it is Crease’s guilt that pervades the novel most, and is finally personified in the undeniably creepy form of Teddy. This is a theme that runs through Piccirilli’s work – the idea of the man haunted by something from his past that is personified either on some higher plane or in his own mind. In many of his other books we are uncertain whether these hauntings are real or not; in The Fever Kill, we can be fairly certain that is a purely sign of Crease’s gradual unravelling. This guilt is, of course, natural to noir, as is the eventual confrontation with both its root cause and its effects. It is in these confrontations – often bloody and terrifying – that The Fever Kill truly grabs the reader by the throat.

But what the novel covers most effectively – and perhaps unexpectedly – is the relationship between father and son; what we hope to pass on to our offspring versus what we really give them.

Crease’s own father seems a natural jumping on point for Piccirilli’s exploration of this relationship. After all this was a seemingly good man who was eventually implicated not only in corruption but in the death of a young girl. Did he kill her? Did he take the money intended for her ransom? Is it the guilt over this that eventually leads to his blood and vomit soaked death on a street of the town of Hangtree?

But it is not the father who carries this guilt throughout the years so much as it is Crease himself who does so on the old man’s behalf. This guilt for his father’s actions explains Crease’s need to leave his old town and try to establish another kind of identity far away; the kind of identity that brings him back full circle to face the truth about his father, and about himself.

Crease’s relationship with his own son – a bullying eight year old with a bubbling anger he could only have inherited from his father - mirrors something of this. Crease wants to pass only the best of humanity on to his son, but with his own guilt and the very nature of the life he leads (that of an undercover agent in an organised crime family) as well as the raging fever that burns inside him, it seems he’s doomed to failure. In this relationship – one conducted long distance, awkwardly and painfully – we truly understand the messed up nature of Crease’s existence.

In his introduction, Ken Bruen claims that Piccirilli can jump genres on the spin of a dime, writing like he’s been doing this kind of thing all his life. And he has, in one sense or another, been working towards this kind of tale. A pulp paperback for the modern world. A noir novel with bite, imbued with the raging fever of the title. It’s not just a simple tale of revenge, although you can read it that way if you want. Piccirilli is an author with style and smarts to spare, and he’s jumped easily from being one of this reviewer’s favourite horror writers to one of his favourite noir writers.

The Fever Kill is one hell of punch to the gut. A smart, literate and terrifying noir nightmare, it confirms Piccirilli as among one of the best modern genre writers; an author who takes chances with his theme, character and style to deliver intriguingly complex and thrilling novels that can be read on multiple levels.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland.com, 17/12/2007

Buy The Fever Kill from Amazon.com

Buy The Fever Kill from Amazon.co.uk