Crime Scene Scotland

Review - THE BURNING SOUL by John Connolly

2012-01-10T10:59:00.000-08:00

By John Connolly, Hodder and Stoughton, 9780340993538

John Connolly is that rarity; a series author who is unafraid to take risks not only with his characters, but also his narrative voice. His lyrical and compellingly literary prose style – that nimbly and effortlessly breaks all the rules to switch between first and third in a way only James Lee Burke seems to have managed previously – has grown in leaps and bounds since his confident debut in EVERY DEAD THING, becoming unique and recognisable both within the genre and perhaps beyond. His peculiar obsessions – the nature of evil, the idea of an afterlife, the physical and mental embodiment of sin – have also marked him out as unique within a genre that can, all too easily, rely on easy tropes and generic shorthand to explore its themes. Even those ideas that seem familiar take on a unique and fresh aspect; Connolly's books demmand and maintain your attention.

While one might have expected Connolly to adhere to a more straightforwardly supernatural route following from the revelations that came to his ongoing protagonist, Charlie Parker, in THE LOVERS, the more overtly fantastical elements of THE BURNING SOUL feel toned down and held back in a way that suggests some characters may be haunted not by outside elements but by their own guilt and fear. Again, this is the hallmark of a Connolly novel: while he may have acknowledged the idea of some other realm of existence, it is all too often the more human incarnation of evil that provides the catalyst for his work.

The novel begins with Parker taking on the case of a man who once lived under another name. That man killed a black girl with the help of his best friend when all three were in their teens. Now living with a new identity and trying to build something that might be close to a worthwhile life, Randall Haight has been receiving threats from someone who seems to know his secret. And with a local girl missing, Haight is going to be suspect number one if anyone does hear a whisper of the boy he used to be.

The grey areas of morality have become Connolly’s playground, and here he asks the reader to consider a number of issues about responsibility of both of the perpetrators and the authorities, and whether someone found guilty of a crime as a child is capable of becoming an adult who contributes to society. There are no easy answers here and Connolly manages to explore sensitive issues without exploiting them or reducing them to a kind of one-dimensional melodrama, something that many lesser writers may have wound up doing.

Sins of the past and issues of identity play deeply into the narrative, and it seems that everyone has a secret to keep, maybe even Parker himself. The idea of the small town with skeletons buried under the streets (metaphorically and perhaps even physically) is nothing new in American literature, but here it serves Connolly’s intentions perfectly and allows him to slowly chip away at his characters to reveal surprising truths about what makes them tick.
On top of all the thematic depth, Connolly’s often-gothic narration is a joy to read. Unusually among thriller writers, his turn of phrase is often beautiful and evocative; a skill that he has developed and honed over his career. He should now one of the most lyrical of the modern crime writers – again, something he shares in common with Burke.

But unlike Burke, Connolly rarely lets his love of words interfere with the swiftness of his narrative, and there is a sense that every word has been carefully considered to build up not only atmosphere, but a riding sense of movement to the novel. And once the novel kicks into its final act, it becomes difficult to stop turning those pages as revelations come thick and fast and assumptions are confounded for both the characters and the reader. And while a few of the central twists might seem a little obvious in the cold light of day, Connolly is a skilled enough writer to make them feel fresh upon a first reading, caught up as you are in his narrative. Connolly is the perfect argument for the literate thriller. On the surface, his books are thrilling and gripping – forcing you turn these pages to find out what happens next. But beneath all of that, the construction and the engagement continues on a deeper level if you care to look for it. This is what makes him exciting and unique as a thriller writer, his insistence on giving his readers something deeper and more than they might expect.

THE BURNING SOUL is a brilliant, tense, literary thriller with just a hint of the supernatural, a uniquely Connolly-esque mix. It will reward long-time fans and recruit new ones, who will no doubt scurry to the backlist to discover what they’ve been missing for all this time.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland 10/01/11

Review - THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC, by Lawrence Block

2012-01-04T10:45:00.000-08:00

Telemachus Press, 9781937387310 (ebook), 9781937698071 (Epub), 9781937387327 (paperback)

It’s no secret that in my other life (that of an unrepentant writer of PI fiction), I have always acknowledged the debt I owe to Lawrence Block’s magnificent creation, Matt Scudder. So the moment I realised Block’s new collection of short stories, THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC, focussed on the PI who used to do “favours for friends”, I was sold. Block and Scudder are a powerhouse combination, but I admit I was intrigued to see how this combination would work in the short story format, as a great deal of what I loved about the Scudder novels was the way that he would intertwine themes and ideas with the main action. Thus the novels were not merely about crime, but about alcoholism, about dealing with past sins and future change, and of course the evolving cityscape of New York. Its worth noting that before I ever visited NYC, my impressions were formed by constant viewing of NYPD Blue and of course the Scudder novels.

This collection maintains all these elements from the Scudder series, and a whole lote more besides. THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC collates shorts from various sources and inspirations (which are detailed in Block’s intriguing afterward) and details moments from over 50 years of Scudder’s life. So here we meet Scudder as he was in his uniform days (in the very clever LET’S GET LOST) and see him through his alcoholic years, his first attempts at sobriety and his more sober senior years.

The stories themselves range from clever mystery construction (OUT THE WINDOW) to odd and affecting viginettes from Scudder’s life (THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC and MICK BALLOU LOOKS AT THE BLANK SCREEN) to affecting glimpses of the transient nature of life in Scudder’s NYC (the quite wonderful, A CANDLE FOR THE BAG LADY) and a whole lot more besides. Scudder’s always been as much about character as he is about crime solving and here we get the evolution of a character through a series of short and often sharply penned stories that grip the reader from the first paragraph and linger for a long time afterward. As a reader, I tend to read short collections in gulps and it’s the rare anthology where I finish one story and then immediately start another. But with THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC, I found myself thinking, “oh, one more short won’t hurt” and suddenly realised I was closing in on the end of the book before I knew what was happening.

Of course all of this emotional connection with Scudder may mean that the collection may not be the best starting off point for newcomers to Scudder (there’s a great deal of history to the character that might better require the breathing room afforded of a novel to elucidate the uninitiated) but that’s a minor criticism and Block handles any necessary exposition with grace and humour. The result is the feeling of dipping in and out of the life of an old friend. Which means that not every story centres on a crime or act of wrongdoing. Indeed, the title story is a brilliantly told mood piece that will deeply satisfy those who have followed Scudder on his journey through life. It is a rare moment of pure humanity in Scudder’s world and, along with moments such as MICK BALLOU LOOKS AT THE BLANK SCREEN (which has the double impact of justifying my adoration of the finale of THE SOPRANOS) serves to give the impression that Scudder is a lot more than just a PI, that his story doesn’t stop when we’re not reading about him.

Along with A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF, this collection makes 2011 a banner year for fans of Scudder (and his creator, Block). You owe it to yourself to stop whatever it is you’re doing and read this collection straight away. As a portrait of not just a man but a city that changes with the years, you’re really not going to do any better.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland.blogspot.com, 04/01/11

Review - ASSUME NOTHING by Gar Anthony Haywood

2012-01-03T15:01:00.000-08:00

ASSUME NOTHING by Gar Anthony Haywood, Severn House, 9781847513793

One of my favourite characters in crime fiction is not a detective or even remotely a hero. Rather he is Richard Stark’s anti-hero, Parker. The sheer determination and absolute focus of the character are reflected in the spare, powerful prose style of its author.

So from the word go, I was inclined to adore this latest novel from the supremely talented Gar Anthony Haywood (YOU CAN DIE TRYING). Its central character, Joe Reddick, shares much in common with Parker. He’s focussed. Determined. Able to improvise. And utterly ruthless. And again, this is reflected by Haywood’s lean, muscular narration. But what makes Reddick more than just a Parker clone, is the fact that while Parker is driven by money and challenge, Reddick is driven by a more primal instinct – the urge to protect his family.

Reddick is an ex-cop with anger management issues. Having seen his family slaughtered almost a decade earlier, he is trying to rebuild his life, despite his frequently inappropriate responses to explosive situations as seen early in the novel where he almost kills a couple of punks causing trouble in a fast food outlet. But he’s grounded by Dana and her son, his new family, his new reason for living. They are what give him hope for the future and allow him to carry on without giving in completely to the psychopathic rage that boils inside him.

As with all good crime novels, what happens next has the organic feel of “shit happens”. Like Elmore Leonard, Haywood spends a while setting up seemingly disparate threads and allowing characters to collide in ways that set up the action to come. Its an accident that puts Reddick in the path of some would-be bad guys trying to dispose of a body. And its those guys who make the mistake of thinking that the best way to make sure Reddick doesn’t talk to the police is to threaten his new family.

From this point on, the novel explodes. The action unfolds quick and fierce, and Reddick unleashes that righteous anger that’s been inside him the whole time. Like Parker, though, he has a code and tries his damndest to stick to it even when the odds dictate he should maybe do otherwise. Unlike Parker, though, this code has a simple moral base and allows the reader to truly get on side with Reddick despite some of the terrible things he does. And it also allows Haywood to play with ideas of ethics and morality in a way many crime novels shy away from. The question of who the bad guy is comes into play as the cops become interested in why bodies are piling up and start to piece together the disparate pieces of the puzzle that the reader already knows. And its a credit to Haywood that while Reddick is an incredible creation, he allows the supporting cast room to breathe. In particular, the trio of "bad guys" that Reddick pursues are painted not as simple schm,ucks or cackling villains, but as ordinary guys who made some bad, bad decisions. This only adds to the novel's sense of realism and increases the tension of the moral conumdrum at the heart of this work. It also means that when they collide with Reddick, the results are anything but predictable. Haywood's characters live and breathe in a way that means we can imagine they might be merely a street away.

Years ago, I read Haywood’s YOU CAN DIE TRYING and adored it. More recently his short story collection, LYRICS FOR THE BLUES confirmed that Haywood is a major talent. ASSUME NOTHING has brought me firmly on board as a fan of Haywood’s literate, engaging and uncompromising brand of crime fiction. You want my advice? If you haven’t read Haywood, you need to start now. Trust me, you’ll want to devour his entire back catalogue.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland 03/01/12

Review Round Up November 2011

2011-11-18T15:36:00.000-08:00

ALREADY GONE by John Rector, Amazon Encore, ISBN 9781439276006
With THE COLD KISS, Rector made an immediate impact upon us here at Crime Scene Scotland. His taut, spare prose was refreshing and affecting, and the dark, twisted plot made us shiver with the kind of discomfort we really seek to find in the best crime fiction.
Now Rector returns with his third novel, ALREADY GONE, the story of a man who has turned his life around and left behind his old days on the streets to become a respected novelist and new college professor. His wife, an art dealer, has little idea of what he was once capable of but loves him all the same. In fact, things couldn’t be better Jake Reese.

Until the mugging.

Outside a bar, Reese is attacked and his wedding ring stolen. Not just the ring, in fact, but the finger on which it was placed. It’s a violent and disturbing act, but something about it makes Jake think there’s more going on than a simple robbery. That there’s something personal motivating the incident.

After this, the novel kicks into an impressively high gear as Jake wonders whether his own past has come back to haunt him. But the truth may be even more terrifying than Jake realises, and when his wife goes missing, Jake reverts to his old ways in order to find the men responsible for destroying his new life.

Of course, things are never what they appear and – like Deaver or Coben – Rector takes a great delight in twisting the reader’s expectations. Unlike most exponents of the twist-in-the-tail-novel, however, these unexpected revelations that smack the reader about the head are oddly truthful and full of an emotional honesty that really hits home. ALREADY GONE never sacrifices character for plot, or even the other way round. No, Rector’s too smart for any of that.

And while one or two twists might threaten to momentarily throw the novel off-balance (there’s a feeling they may be just a little too clever verging on the cute), Rector’s controlled and balanced sense of scale keeps ALREADY GONE believably tense and occasionally quite terrifying.

ALREADY GONE is simply one of the best character-led thrillers I’ve read in a long time. With its spare, brutal prose, it allows the reader space to read between the lines of the action and to truly immerse themselves in Rector’s dangerous, deceptive universe. No longer simply “one to watch”, John Rector is now firmly established as one of the finest of the new breed of thriller writers and one who deserves to find a large and devoted readership.

DOVE SEASON by Johnny Shaw, Amazon Encore, ISBN 9781935597643

Johnny Shaw’s debut novel makes an impression from the first page with a confident voice and a real sense of place. Reading the book was enough to make me feel dehydrated from the dry heat of rural California, near the Mexican border, so that my short soaked through with sweat even though all I was doing was sitting in a chair.

Atmosphere is king in Dove Season, and while Jimmy Veeder and the cast who revolve about him are the stars of the plot, it is Shaw’s evocation of place that stays with you long after you’ve finished the novel. And that is a great thing; I often feel like I’ve toured the world through the pages of crime novels and the ones that stay with me are the ones that give me a real sense of place. Johnny Shaw’s vision of life on both sides of the border is immediate, memorable and utterly compelling.

Which isn’t to say he shirks on other duties. While the novel appears to take its time – with our protagonist, Jimmy Veeder searching for a prostitute his dying father once knew – in setting up events, it soon becomes that this leisurely pace is essential, and by the midway point, where the gear suddenly shifts and the novel starts to descend into a terrifying freefall, you start to see how clever Shaw is. Plot is as much about the setup as it is about the resolution, and Shaw is a master at making his action unexpected while at the same time appearing natural and utterly inevitable.

This is a complex and quite brilliant novel that is both ambitious and surprisingly accomplished for a debut. Of course, some people may find the move from meandering and thoughtful caper to flat-out thriller territory a little jarring, but Shaw is smart enough to make that move seem inevitable and by the end of the book you’ll be sweating not just from that desert heart but from fear of what will happen next.

DOVE SEASON is a novel about fathers and sons, about life-changing decisions, about finding your own morality. The atmosphere is palpable and all-consuming, and the cast feel like old friends within moments of meeting them. If this is how Shaw starts out, then we at Crime Scene Scotland can’t wait to see what he does for an encore.

HELL AND GONE by Duane Swierczynski, Mulholland, ISBN 978-1444707588

Swierczynski is the master at making the ludicrous plausible. Frome nanobots (THE BLONDE) to time travelling aspirin (EXPIRATION DATE) he excels at taking insane plot points and making them feel real. Much of this is to do with his grounded and utterly convincing voice. More is to do with his ability to pace his novels at such a breakneck speed, you have no choice but to hang on and go for the ride.

The first in his Charlie Hardie trilogy, FUN AND GAMES continued this trend with ex-cop Hardie pitted against “the accident people”, a mysterious organisation who excelled in killing people and making it seem like an accident. Now, in HELL AND GONE, Charlie finds himself incarcerated in a seemingly impossible prison. He is told that he is to be the new warden, and that if he refuses his new duties then everyone in the prison – including the innocent guards that are now under his charge – will die. The prison is deep underground and no one has ever escaped or even attempted to. The inmates and guards alike are utterly cut off from the outside world.

HELL AND GONE is complex – moreso than it first appears – and this makes for a delicious game of twist and countertwist as Swierczynski plays with his readers. Its insane, its ludicrous and its incredibly good fun. Like the best kind of action movies, HELL AND GONE just asks you to accept its rules and have a blast. It’s a burst of adrenaline, and surprisingly smart for something so insane. Swierczynski may be making his own rules, but he sticks by them and refuses to cheat his characters or his readers. This is the kind of action thriller that doesn’t need to talk down to its audience.

Once again, as with FUN AND GAMES, the reader is left on the edge of their seat. But fret not, its only a few short months until the third instalment of the Hardie trilogy. And I’ll tell you this – we at Crime Scene Scotland can’t wait for it to hit our shelves!

NINE INCHES by Bateman 978-0755378647

(The Artist formerly known as “Colin”) Bateman’s long-awaited new Dan Starkey novel is finally here. NINE INCHES (and there’s a moment where that title just clicks – and it’s a pretty good gag too) finds the ex-investigative reporter turned owner of a “Boutique bespoke service for important people with difficult problems” or, as you and I would say, Private Investigator, tackling the case of a local radio personality whose son was kidnapped for four hours and returned unharmed with a note in his pocket.

It’s a case that’s going to turn Belfast on its head. Taking in The Troubles, Organised crime, the perils of life as a butcher and how best to negotiate with a fourteen year old troublemaker by taking away his false leg, it’s a Bateman novel through and through, with just enough of a serious undertone to make all the jokes matter.

If you love Bateman, you’re going to dig the hell out of Nine Inches. The plot is nicely absurd and the gags are often very, very funny. And more than once there are moments of real humanity amongst the caper-like plot.

But if I’m honest, I’m not so keen on Starkey as a character as I am on Bateman’s more recent creation, The Bookseller with No Name. Like The Bookseller, Starkey has a neat line of put downs and timely gags, but unlike The Bookseller he often comes across as overly self-centred and more than a little callous. But then I like my characters with a bit of humility, and its much the same problem as I have with Christopher Brookmyre whereby I prefer the novels without his ongoing character Jack Parlabane. In fact, Parlabane and Starkey have a great deal in common. They’re both stubborn, annoyingly confident, supremely arrogant men who happen to wind up on the right side whether they intend to or not. And that’s fun for a while, but both characters supreme confidence can get a little wearing after a while. The self-doubt of a character like The Bookseller is, for this reader, infinitely more endearing.

That said, I still got a big kick out of Nine Inches. It’s a fun caper novel with a few serious thoughts lurking beneath the great gags as Starkey exposes the self-destructive greed and pig-headed idiocy of those around him with some particularly good barbs pointed in the direction of the political sphere.

A Bateman novel is always good value, even without The Bookseller. He’s one of the kings of the caper and one of an elect few authors who can marry humour with a thriller format and come away with his dignity – and his obvious talent – intact. Nine Inches will only cement his reputation as one of the most consistently entertaining writers on the block.

CHOKE HOLD by Christa Faust

2011-09-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

Hard Case Crime, ISBN 9780857682857, $7.99, $9.95

Faust has long been a favourite here at Crime Scene Scotland. From the sheer bravura of MONEY SHOT to the alterna-noir of HOODTOWN, she is one of the strongest, most convincing authors of the new noir breed. We’ve been waiting for CHOKE HOLD for a long time now, and figure we have to cut straight to the chase by saying this is one of the most thrilling, exciting and affecting noir novels you’re going to read all year.

At this year’s Bouchercon, Faust talked about how she can promote her books on two levels. There’s the “porn star gets two –fisted revenge on those who did her wrong” angle, and then there’s the more emotional body image, aging and dealing with loss side of the novels that appeal more to the emotional reader. As with MONEY SHOT, the book works on both levels, and quite brilliantly.

When we catch up with Angel Dare (last seen in MONEY SHOT), she’s in Witness Protection, working under the name Julie and seeing a court-appointed psychologist to talk about what happened to her. But with the psychologist more interested in Dare’s past in the porn industry and Dare’s own defences not allowing her to open up to anyone, never mind this nosy shrink, it’s a case of severely wasted time. And then a face from Dare’s past turns up, sending her on the run again. She meets an old acquaintance – Thick Vic – and his kid, Cody, an MMA* fighter on his way up. But there’s no time to get reacquainted as a shoot-out kills Vic and sends Dare on the run with his son.

From here, CHOKE HOLD doesn’t let up for a page. True to her pulp roots, Faust knows how to keep the narrative taut, but never at the expense of characterisation. For all the gunfights and two-fisted action, there’s an emotional honesty that lurks around the edges of the action. Dare may deny her feelings, but that doesn’t mean they’re entirely absent. More than once she betrays something of the woman she could have been to the reader, and those moments are truly affecting. On top of that, the supporting cast are brilliantly drawn, particularly the hugely empathetic Hank “The Hammer” Hammond, Cody’s trainer and maybe his only friend.
Dare is an intriguing character. More than simply an avenging angel, she is a truly human creation who tries to deny her own humanity to cope with the situations she finds herself in. She is one of the most engaging heroes to emerge from the crime scene in a long time, and honestly, we here at Crime Scene Scotland are hoping and praying for a third instalment.

Faust herself does a brilliant job at engaging the reader with worlds that may not be familiar to them. Her take on the adult entertainment industry is not always glamorous, but it is never as preachily downbeat as certain other writers might paint it. Dare’s attitude here makes all the difference. To Dare, the Industry is a job, and it comes with its good and its bad. Yeah, its got a lot of damaged people working in it, but what industry doesn’t? Coming out of the other end of the novel, the reader comes to realise that the world isn’t as black and white as they might have believed, whether in the world of organised sex or organised fights.

CHOKE HOLD is a sexy, dangerous and compelling novel from an author whose direct, spare prose burns itself into the brain. If you haven’t read Faust, you need to do yourself a favour a check her out right now.

*Mixed Martial Arts – for the uninitiated, it’s a bit like the new form of wrestling where, essentially, anything goes

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland 24.09.11

Round up July 2011

2011-07-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

We're still here, you know. Still reading the best crime books. We've made a decision recently that in order to keep the reviews going we need to do more round up reviews than one offs. This means shorter takes but hopefully more reviews. And while they may be briefer, rest assured they're still going to be well-thought out and solidly opinionated, just the way you've come to expect from Crime Scene Scotland.

Anyway here's what we've been reading lately:

BLACK FLOWERS By Steve Mosby Orion Books, 978-1409101116

Mosby’s complex thriller is as much about how storys and narratives run through our lives as it is about the mysterious connection a young writer’s father may have to a long cold case. Mosby uses fairy tale motifs ("This is not the story of a little girl who dissapears. This is the story of a little girl who comes back") to great effect in this unique and unsettling thriller, cementing his reputation as one of the most original high concept thriller writers working in the UK today.

It all threatens to get a little silly as the conspiracy becomes insanely personal, but Mosby pulls it back from the brink by presenting the reader with emotionally honest characters and a genuine intrigue that builds as the narrative progresses. And while the thriller aspects – and in particular those that verge close to a kind of horror motif – are very well done, its Mosby’s investment in character that really pulls us in. Very few writers can create such real characters as Mosby does in the thriller genre, and its this deftness of touch that places him leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the pack. It helps that he somehow makes even the most high of high concepts appear plausible.

If you haven’t read Mosby before, we advise you start now.

KILLER MOVE Michael Marshall Orion Books, 978-1409133247

As ever with Marshall, the book starts intriguingly with a man who starts to realise that the life he’s living is being manipulated by forces beyond his control. Bill Moore is an ordinary guy, a Florida Realtor, who has started to notice odd things happening in his life. Little business cards with the word MODIFIED start appearing in his workspace. Books he never order come by post. Emails he never sent are recieved by friends. And then the changes start getting bigger and more disturbing. And the worst part is, no one else seems to notice.

Marshall's prose is solid and engaging, and the intrigue and level of tension is slowly ratcheted with a kind of expert control. Its the kind of thing Marshall does with ease; taking the everyday and then twisting into something else. The trouble is that often Marshall's ideas are too big to appear plausible, and as KILLER MOVE races to its conclusion, its only in the last few chapters that the reader may feel the narrative beginning to implode.

As with THE INTRUDERS, there’s that twist of the knife that goes just a little too far. Unlike one of his closest counterparts in modern thriller writing, Steve Mosby, Marshall doesn’t present us with characters complex enought to pull us through the insanity of their situation. They seem more at the mercy of the plot than the plot is at the mercy of them. Ultimately this means that the motivation of the bad guys appears paper thin. Although perhaps that’s because one might need to have read Marshall’s famous Straw Men series first, as another reader has pointed out to us.

Of course, much of this can be down to personal taste, and if you can buy the increasingly insane twists and turns of the plot, this is a well written thriller with one hell of a great opening. How much you can take though depends entirely on your suspension of disbelief and whether you were a fan of the old Michael Douglas movie, THE GAME, which seems to have had more than a passing influence on Marshall’s narrative here (but its an influence and – thankfully – not a direct knock-off) or at least that's how I felt when I realised where events were heading to.

I feel much the same about KILLER MOVE as I did about THE INTRUDERS, which was a solid and intriguing premise rather blunted by an ending that felt rushed and out of left field. But Marshall is clearly a writer of talent and his attempts to inject something a little different into the crowded thriller field should be applauded, even if they tend to self destruct towards the end.

FUN AND GAMES Duane Swierczynski Mulholland Books, 978-1444707564

The first of a trilogy featuring Charlie Harper – ex Philly cop turned “house sitter” – finds our hero getting involved with a mysterious group of directors who arranged accidental deaths for a price. Madden Lane is a starlet with a past whose indiscretions have become inconvenient to the wrong people who now want her dead. But no one reckoned on Harper getting involved.

As always with Swierczynski (THE BLONDE), the action is ludicrous and yet rendered believable by the tight, uncompromising prose and the sheer, relentless pace. Where most thriller writers believe detailing guns for pages on end is a way to get the adrenaline pumping, Swierczynski jumps straight to the chase giving you only what you need to understand the action. And it works, it really does. The author isn’t apologising or explaining his story. He’s letting it stand on its own two feet, and this results in the kind of narrative that just sweeps you up and has you hanging on for dear life. Swierczynski is one of the few writers who can recreate the adrenaline rush of the best action thrillers on the page, and the only thing you can do as a reader is just surrender and go along for the ride. To keep you in the mood, each chapter is headed with quotes from action movies and film stars, which becomes a fun little game to see how the intent of these quotes is twisted to fit Swierczynski’s narrative.

Yes, it’s melodramatic, ludicrous and patently insane. But its sense of self belief is palpable that even a half-naked, one-eyed woman who arranges killings with cold efficiency seems absolutely plausible within Swierczynski’s world. Not to say that the novel isn’t smart. It is. FUN AND GAMES is sly, and fun and just one hell of a good time.

This is the first book of Swierczynski’s to be published in the UK. So if you haven’t read him yet, you no longer have an excuse. Go buy FUN AND GAMES. Right now. Or I’m giving the Accident People your name…

FIFTH VICTIM By Zoe Sharp Allison and Busby, 978-0749009328

For a long time I've been singing the praises of Zoe Sharp's Charlie Fox novels, citing not only her uniqueness in the male-dominated action thriller genre, but also the fact that her books feel absolutely real; there is no questioning the authenticity here.

As the Fox series has developed, another interesting wrinkle has been added - - Sharp gives a distinctly human quality to her protagonist. Charlie is not just another arse-kicking automaton, but a fully rounded human being who occasionally makes bad judgement calls. The last one, of course, wound up with her lover and fellow bodyguard Sean Meyer in a coma.

In FIFTH VICTIM, Charlie finds taking on an apparently simple gig to try and distract her from the reality of Sean's condition. But nothing is ever as simple as it seems and soon enough both Charlie's life and that of her principle are in danger. The plot twists and turns with a surprising ease, but its the final twists that provide a real kick to the heart and the head.

The perfect blend of thrills and emotional investment mean that Sharp's latest novel is her best yet. If you're not reading her, you really should start now.

Russel D Mclean for crimescenescotlandreviews.blogspot.com, 14/07/11

CALIFORNIA by Ray Banks

2011-03-24T13:01:00.000-07:00

CALIFORNIA by Ray Banks. Five leaves, Crime express, ISBN 9781907869075, £4.99

Review by Tim Stephen

California is the story of recently released from prison, Shug Boyle. Shug's time inside taught him how to deal with his temper, however ineffectively, and to work towards a goal. The prison therapist never intended for Shug to resort to criminal methods in order to achieve that goal, but for Shug – and the reader – it seems absolutely logical.

We meet Shug just as he has car-jacked a pensioner in the first steps of his goal “to travel a bit, see outside of the lowlands”. We follow his progress as he tries to reclaim his stash. Along the way Shug tangles with various characters from his home town California (next to Falkirk) including the guys who fingered him to the police in the first place, (read it and you can judge if he deals with his anger management there).

As we travel with Shug we learn about his quick temper and his ways of dealing with it. We see his life before he was jailed. In short, we get to see what kind of a bloke he is. As I've always found with Banks' work, it doesn't matter whether his characters are good or bad, we sympathise with them from start to finish. California is no exception. Shug is obviously a bit of a hard man with a reputation for violence but he's now trying to leave his past behind. Unfortunately for Shug, but fortunately for the reader (after all, who wants to read about a typical Hollywood happy ending?), things don’t work out as planned.

Fans of Banks will not be disappointed at his cringe-worthy rendering of violence and sharp dialogue that renders his characters all the more believable.

I'm a big fan of Ray Banks' work myself and would highly recommend any of his novels. This little novella fits in perfectly with the rest of his books. It has the sharp punch of a short story with added meat to its bones. Admittedly, at just shy of a hundred pages I read it from cover to cover in one sitting, but that's as much a reflection on the quality as the length.

Tim Stephen for crimescenescotland, 24/03/11

THE DEPUTY by Victor Gischler

2011-01-31T13:13:00.000-08:00

THE DEPUTY by Victor Gischler Tyrus Books, 9781935562009 (pb) / 9781935562016 (hb)
Victor Gischler’s THE DEPUTY is one of those hick-town hardboiled books that always draw me in. Set in one of those small US towns with a population where everyone knows damn near everyone else and where the police are as local as they come, it’s the story of a newly minted Deputy who gets in over his head when he stumbles over a local conspiracy.

The Deputy in question is Toby Sawyer. He’s a directionless kind of guy who’s fallen into this line of work after his dreams of becoming a musician fell apart and he got stuck in his home town. Now he’s stuck doing shit work as the new deputy and running between the mother of his child and his younger, wilder lover. He’s not a bad guy as such, but he’s not the hero type.

And he’s certainly not a natural law enforcement. Left to guard the dead body of a local kid, he gets distracted and winds up losing the body. This is is just the start of a nightmare for Toby who soons finds himself in real trouble, struggling to keep his head above water.

Gischler’s previous novels run the gamut starting with Leonardesque novels of criminals and hit men (GUN MONKEY, SHOTGUN OPERA) before moving to apocalyptic SF (GO GO GIRLS OF THE APOCALYPSE) and frequent comic book work for Marvel Comics. So its nice to see him return to the genre where he started. If anything, as good notice as Gun Monkey and Shotgun Opera had on their release, The Deputy blows them right out of the water.

Gischler’s voice feels more confident and his evocation of small town life is wonderful, as he evokes both the boredom of being stuck in the place where everyone knows everyone else and the fear that something dark is hiding just beneath the surface of the community.

Sawyer is a perfect protagonist; an ordinary guy who finds himself in over his head. He’s no hero, per-se, although he may be forced to act like one, and its telling that when the book starts off he’s wearing his tin badge over a t-shirt. This guy is no law enforcement officer, Gischler’s telling us, he’s just some guy who found himself in this place with no plan and no idea. By the end of the book, of course, he’s something else entirely, and Gischler shows this evolution of character in a kind of subtle way, so that its only by the end of the book we realise what’s been happening and how Sawyer has been changed. It’s a great arc and like the best arcs you don’t realise what’s happening until the very last page; its organically handled.

But this is a Gischler novel, which means that while there my subtlety in craft, on the surface there’s some rip-roaring violence (in one particular case that made me wince, the word rip is horrifically appropriate) some damn fine jokes and a momentum that pulls the reader through until the last page.

Perhaps some of the elements of the plot – the small town corruption that Sawyer uncovers along with its major players are perhaps of little surprise to anyone familiar with the genre – are nothing new, but Gischler’s confident prose, gripping set-pieces and well-drawn characters more than make up for this.

The Deputy is a fast-paced, gripping small town hardboiled novel with a well-crafted protagonist and compelling action. Perfect for fans of Elmore Leonard, Patrick Quinlan or anyone who just loves a damn good crime novel.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotlandreviews, 31/01/11

DR YES by Bateman

2011-01-28T13:25:00.000-08:00

DR. YES By Bateman

Headline, £14.99, 9780755378609

MYSTERY MAN was one of those books that grabbed me from the opening page. Bateman’s Bookseller With No Name is a neurotic, paranoid, hypochondriac mess of a man who barely understands people and treats his customers with a barely restrained loathing for their obvious idiocy. He is every retailer on a bad day taken to extremes. And yet somehow, he is immensely empathetic in a very unsettling way. His rambling narration is frequently laugh out loud funny and peppered with the kind of geeky references that will add another dimension to fans of the genre (one could create a kind of drinking game out of it, but it might be a rather solo exercise unless there is an audio version available). But that first book seemed like a one off exercise, a beautifully executed and somewhat ludicrious joke that couldn’t possibly form the basis for a series.

Right?

Okay. Wrong.

DAY OF THE JACK RUSSELL followed swiftly and now we have the quite magnificent DR. YES, which continues in much the same vein as the first two novels with our bookselling hero trying to live out the life of his fictional heroes while steadfastly refusing to actually place himself in any real danger unless someone first shove him in the way of it. His relationship – “she’s not my girlfriend!” – with the now pregnant jewellery seller Alison is absolutely wonderful, although there is a suspicion that she is every bit as unhinged as he given that she seems to let him hang around her.

And the word unhinged could apply to almost every cast member with the possible exception of the long suffering DI Robinson who plays the straight man throughout the novels with a kind of weariness one suspects would come quickly dealing with the Mystery Man and his cohorts.

This time around, our nameless hero starts the ball rolling by chasing down an elusive and little-published writer who he sees passing the shop. Sensing the opportunity for some cash from first editions, our hero is as ever driven by his own inflated and childish id and winds up involved in a mystery that takes in a missing (presumed dead) wife, a charismatic plastic surgeon with great teeth and a too-sexy-to-be-true femme fatalle by the name of Pearl Knecklasse (cue a great discussion between Mystery Man and Alison over how that can’t possibly be a real name).

As ever with Bateman, the gags are spot on, the laconic narration is perfectly paced and the action is often inspired by its own twisted kind of logic. The Bookseller With No Name series continues to be effortless and sometimes inspired entertainment, even for those who won’t get all the in-jokes about various crime authors and genre clichés. Bateman continues to be one of those talented few who can write comic mysteries with apparent ease, and if you like your crime stories with a (darkly) comic edge, you need to go pick Dr Yes up right now. Preferably from the most neurotic, paranoid and hypochondriac bookseller you can find…

DON'T LOOK BACK by Laura Lippman

2011-01-27T16:18:00.000-08:00

DON’T LOOK BACK by Laura Lippman

Avon Books – March, 2010, £6.99 978147560940

Laura Lippman impressed us here at Crime Scene Scotland when we stumbled upon THE POWER OF THREE, Lippman’s powerful novel set around a high school shooting. Since then, we have immersed ourselves in Lippman’s writing; an often gut-wrenching blend of crime fiction, literary stylings and pop fiction that deals with complex emotional issues amidst twisting and gripping plots. While she may be better known her Tess Monahan series, we have always had a weakness for her standalone novels, and so were excited when DON’T LOOK BACK* came through our mailbox.

Don’t Look Back tells two parallel narratives, starting in 1985 when Walter Bowman starts to uncover a darker side to himself, working his way to becoming a notorious serial killer. As we follow Walter’s transformation, the second narrative begins in the modern world as Eliza Benedict – the girl who escaped Bowman’s clutches and ultimately led to his capture – finds herself receiving letters from the man, who is finally facing the death sentence.

Lippman’s narrative is all about memory and recollection. As we follow both narratives, we discover the ways in which people remember events and places and how these can sometimes distort the reality and emotions connected to people. Eliza appears at first to be a very passive character, and as the narrative progresses we suddenly realise how different her appearance is from her internal personality, how there are forces driving her that even she may not be aware of.

The narrative itself is intriguing and provides that perfect mix between literary and thriller. You think you know what to expect, but Lippman pulls the rug out from under you creating a story that feels much more personal than one might expect. As it rolls towards its denoument, you find yourself emotionally conflicted and uncertain as to the truth of any given situation. By letting the modern and 1985 narratives run in tandem, Lippman illuminates the truth in patches until you suddenly realise that what you were looking at was not perhaps what you thought it was.

It should also be noted the Walter Bowman is one of the most believable serial killers to have been written about in modern fiction. Less a bogeyman and more a deeply troubled human being, his humanity is what makes him so terrifying. At his heart, he is a man driven by basic human needs who has gone off track somewhere and watching as he descends into a terrible place, convinced of his own motives, is a deeply chilling experience.

Don’t Look Back is an incredible, literary crime novel, one that should hopefully propel Lippman’s profile here in the UK. If you haven’t discovered Lippman yet, we urge you to pick up this book when its released and discover one of the most intelligent and skilled writers working in the crime genre today.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland, 28/01/11

*published in the US as I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE

Private Eyes From the Hardboiled Guys

2011-01-27T13:21:00.000-08:00

INNOCENT MONSTER by Reed Farrel Coleman Tyrus Books, $24.95, ISBN 9781935562207
A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF by Lawrence Block , Mulholland Books, May 2011, ISBN 9780316127332

The Private Eye is one of those archetypal characters everybody believes they know and understand. We all have this image solidified by decades of cliché and ingrained ideas that tallies our image of the investigator. This makes it tough to come up with anything new to say when writing about such a character, but at least two novels I’ve read in the last few months have proved that the eye is far from washed up.

The first novel was Reed Farrel Coleman’s latest Moe Prager novel, INNOCENT MONSTER (Tyrus Books). Coleman is one of my favourite of the current breed of eye heroes, not least because his stories rob the genre of its melodrama and instead aim for a more realistic, but no less hard-hitting account of the life of the eye. The Prager series focuses on mistakes buried in the past, on how we plant the seeds for our own destruction many years before they take fruit and how we seldom even notice that we’ve done so. This latest novel finds Prager retired from the investigation business, pulled back in by his estranged daughter. It seems that Prager’s past is what pulls him into the investigation business every time, as if by solving another’s problem he can somehow atone for all that he has done wrong.

As Prager finds himself pulled into the search for a missing art prodigy, he finds he must deal with the guilt of others as well as his own lingering self-criticism and guilt over all the anguish he has brought others. The only real reason Moe pursues the case is to try and mend his relationship with his daughter. As the book progresses, Moe is duped, outsmarted and double crossed by nearly everyone, but the fact is that no one can hurt Prager as badly as he can hurt himself. He is a unique and wonderful character – utterly rounded and flawed in a convincingly conflicted way so few crime protagonists are. Moe is neither a crusader nor an agent of chaos. He is simply a human being with all that entails, and Innocent Monster serves to further our insight into the man he is and the man he has been.

But while character may be king, Coleman manages to serve a meaty plot with which to mirror Prager’s own internal drama. The search for Sashi Bluntstone – child art prodigy, now missing – serves as a way into a world where no one can tell the truth, where people wear masks to disguise their own sins and where decades-long pain has started to resurface. Any writer can knock at the art-loving middle/upper class set but Coleman does it in a way that feels strikingly real and utterly plausible. The fact that Coleman – like all good eyes – is an outsider to this world only serves to bring further illuminations to the truths he uncovers within this world.

Coleman only came to Crime Scene Scotland’s attention a few years ago, but he has rapidly become one of our favourite writers here, and Innocent Monster only serves to cement that reputation. This is crime writing at its smartest and it’s most emotionally honest. Innocent Monster is the kind of book that stays with you, and of course will leave you wanting to know what happens next, as it hints at what might be in store for Moe the next time we meet him.

A word of warning, of course. If you are new to Prager, perhaps you might want to start earlier in the series. The emotional impact of the series works at its best as a slow and gradual build up. While we at Crime Scene Scotland often claim that series books do not need to be read in order, the Prager books are of a select few that have maximum emotional impact when read in order. But trust us, you won’t be disappointed.

The second novel is the forthcoming A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF (Mulholland) from Lawrence Block, and it’s the latest in one of my favourite long running eye series featuring ex-alcoholic eye Matt Scudder. What makes A Drop of the Hard Stuff interesting is that it acts as a flashback piece, a look back at a gap in Scudder’s decades long career. Looking at the chronology of the Scudder character, it is clear that there is a long gap between his realisation that he is an Alcoholic and his recovery. During that period we learn little of Scudder’s life, and know only that he returned more sober if not necessarily wiser.

The last couple of Scudder books (the last being 2005’s ALL THE FLOWERS ARE DYING) had found Scudder in a kind of odd place as a character. With his past behind him and his sins coming to a head in EVERYBODY DIES, it seemed as though there was nowhere new to take Matt. He was still one of the finest written eyes on the block (no pun intended) but the fire seemed to have gone from his belly.

This is what makes A Drop of the Hard Stuff so interesting; it takes place at a time in Scudder’s life when the conflict between his old and new selves was at its height. It was a time when he could tip either way, when his future was uncertain. As a result this makes for an intriguing central conflict within the book and the real possibility that our hero may just slip up. The very personal aspect of Scudder’s investigation – as he investigates the death of a childhood friend who is also in the Twelve Step Program – adds fuel to the emotional fire of Scudder and provides a neat counterpoint to the exploration of Scudder himself.

In contrast to the Moe Prager novels, Scudder’s world is operatic in its intensity. His is a world of melodrama. Grittily convincing melodrama, but melodrama nonetheless. This is not a criticism. Scudder is the last of the original two-fisted PIs left out there. He is one of the last pure eyes left, and he shows us in this novel why they were so effective and why they belonged to a very particular time and place before the genre had to evolve. In the prologue and epilogue, we see Scudder as he is now and New York as it has become. He talks about aging, about change, and we realise how much things have changed even if it feels like we haven’t noticed. Block makes perfect use of the contrast between the world now and the world as it was when Scudder was trying to quit the drink. The New York of A Drop of the Hard Stuff is the New York that used to be, that was associated with sin, where every corner was a temptation to a man trying to stop drinking, to pull himself out of the sleaze. It stands in sharp relief to the newly gentrified Manhattan and reminds us just how much things have changed in the space of a few decades.

A Drop of the Hard Stuff is one of the best Scudder’s in a long time and it’s a reminder of the power the character has, why he has become part of the pantheon of great hardboiled investigators. Block claimed a few years back he was to quit writing. But even if it turned out to merely a rest, it’s clear that he and Scudder are not only back, but they’re firing on all cylinders.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland, 27/01/11

FOURTH DAY and KILLER INSTINCT by Zoe Sharp

2010-08-04T14:54:00.000-07:00

FOURTH DAY, Alison and Busby, £19.99, 9780749008154 (HB)
KILLER INSTINCT, Busted Flush Press, $15, 9781935415138 (PB)

First time I met Charlotte “Charlie” Fox, she was bleeding out in a forest during the opening pages of the excellent thriller, Second Shot. By the end of that book, she had become one of my favourite thriller characters. There were several reasons for this. One was the fact that she spoke with such an authoritative voice on the world of close protection, and the second was the fact that she was a truly impressive protagonist and one of the most rounded women characters I had encountered in crime fiction.

So it was with great anticipation that I opened Zoe Sharp’s latest novel to feature Fox, Fourth Day (Allison and Busby).

The novel opens with Charlie in deep trouble. Something’s gone wrong, and she’s waiting for her captors to arrive. We’re picking up hints of trouble, and we know things are going to be bad, but what we can’t figure out is how or why Charlie got into this situation in the first place. And it’s a credit to author Sharp that she so skilfully makes us question everything we think we know in that brilliant opening sequence.

In Fourth Day Charlie and her team have been hired to pull a man out of a mysterious desert cult after he went undercover several years previously. But as the mission progresses, they come to realise that maybe the man they’re looking for has become one with the cult he was looking to expose, and they find themselves needing to discover how and why this could have happened. After all, Thomas Witney went in looking to prove the cult was responsible for the death of his son, and that’s not the kind of thing you can quickly or easily forgive.

But there’s more going on here than an intriguing plot, and where Sharp separates herself from so many thriller contemporaries is the sheer depth she gives to her protagonist. While the argument can – and should – be made that Charlie is a far more effective hero than many male characters in similar genres, she is also clearly defined, never once feeling like a male character in female clothing. Charlie is utterly convincing both in her profession and herself. Throughout the course of this book – and its hard not to talk in depth about some of the many hurdles Sharp throws in her character’s path, although to do so would take away much of the drama so expertly handled – Charlie faces decisions that Jack Reacher could never dream of and deals with them in a way that is at once heartbreaking and utterly in line with dangerously capable character Sharp has spent many novels defining.

Add to this a conclusion that’s going to leave the Fox Faithful (and even newcomers to the series) with their jaws dropped, and you have one of the most emotionally honest and yet adrenaline-pumping thrillers of the past few years.

Which makes it interesting to go back in time and re-read Charlie’s first appearance in the now re-issued Killer Instinct (Busted Flush Press)

Charlie’s first appearance is a long cry from her later stateside adventures (I believe she first crossed the Atlantic in First Drop), set in Northern England, with Charlie teaching self-defence to women and recovering from her dismissal from the armed forces after a horrific sexual assault at the hands of several fellow officers. The novel finds Charlie getting involved in bouncer work for a shady nightclub and crossing paths with a serial rapist and murderer.

The tone is removed a little from her later adventures, and there is a more “English” hint to Charlie’s voice here (perhaps those years spent in the States smoothed out the accent some) which makes it feel very different to the novels that were to come. But it’s a solid, very well written debut that shows a lot of promise which Sharp would later fulfil and possibly surpass. The urban English setting is nicely realised, and grimy enough to make the reader’s skin crawl on occasion, particularly Charlie’s work at the Adelphi Nightclub. And even so early in the series, the action is so well choreographed that you believe every bone crunching impact on the page.

Killer Instinct is a sharp, punchy read; a brutally confident start to a series that would continue to evolve in the best possible ways. Busted Flush Press are going to be reprinting the early Fox novels over the next year or so, and you’d be well advised to check them out and get acquainted with one of the most well-defined and convincing series protagonists I’ve encountered in a long time.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland, 04/08/10

2010 summer roundup

2010-06-01T12:10:00.000-07:00

Yes, its been a hiatus for a while here at Crime Scene Scotland, but we're back with a heaping helping of reviews to let you know what we've been reading these last few months. We've selected and distilled some of our favourites to let you know what's been happening in the big, bad world of crime fiction during the first half of 2010.

JOHNNY PORNO by Charlie Stella, Stark House Books, 978-1933586298

Stella’s latest novel is a blazing, wonderful evocation of 1970’s America. Reminiscent of the works of George V Higgins – perhaps more so than any of Stella’s previous works – Johnny Porno is an authentic, captivating novel that retains Stella’s trademark emphasis on dialogue, married with a gritty style that feels very much of the period he’s writing about. This is a novel that could have been contemporaneous, given its feel and its style. And that is a huge compliment to Stella, who shows a real feel for the period without ever laying infodump on the audience or reminding constantly that this work is historical.

Johnny Porno focuses on John Albano, recently divorced, recently laid off, looking for a bit of extra cash to help support his kid. He finds the cash in transporting film reels for the mob, whose latest scam involves screenings of recently banned porno, Deep Throat. Of course, John’s in way over his head and before long, there’s a steaming pile of trouble landing on his doorstep.

Stella’s novel is intricately plotted, with a cast of fully realised characters and a sly humour that runs just beneath the surface but never undercuts the reality of his writing. Johnny Porno is Stella’s seventh novel, and its his most mature and most convincing yet. If you haven’t discovered Stella yet (and if you haven't, what's your excuse?) you need to start, now.

FLORIDA GOTHIC STORIES by Vicki Hendricks, Kitsune Books, 978-0981949536

Single author short story collections can often be a mixed bag, but Hendricks is a writer who has truly captured the form and writes with an ease and a grace that reminds you of the true power the short story can have over a reader.

Her stories, which run the gamut from the dream-like to the horrifyingly, convincingly real are told with such conviction that the reader sometimes finds themselves uncertain about their own reality. Her subjects are often bizarre and outlandish – witness the first story in the collection where the object of our narrators affections turns out to be a dolphin – but imbued with a recognisable and desperate humanity that speaks to the Gothic themes and psycho-sexual natures of much of her narrative. These are not freak shows for our amusement, but twisted and still recognisable reflections on humanity at its worst and its best.

Florida Gothic stories is an entrancing, incredible collection from a powerfully talented author. I came to Hendricks through her novels, but her short stories as evidenced here are every bit as powerful and unsettling as her longer works. Particular standouts include the dreamlike Stormy, Mon Amour, the sexually charged (even if the punchline seems perhaps a little telegraphed), ReBecca and the surreally unsettling Cold Blooded Lovers.

DRINK THE TEA by Thomas Kaufmann, St Martin's, 978-0312607302

Kaufmann’s debut PI novel is a contemporary DC-based mystery that feels, in its way, an homage to the classic PI model. Willis Gidney, while a product of the modern age, could have easily slotted into Matt Scudder’s world or been a contemporary of Archer. Hell, with his wisecracking narrative he could easily have stood side by side with Marlowe.

But his stomping ground is DC, and while he may have much in common with classic PI archetypes, one slowly starts to wonder how much of that is an act given Gidney’s chequered and intriguing past as a delinquent in the Capital. This tension between past and present provides a great deal of colour to the character, allowing him some depth and tension that might have been missing in the hands of a lesser writer.

In Drink the Tea, Gidney finds himself hired to find a jazz musicians daughter, but the case goes deeper than anyone ever expected. It’s a complex case, and one couldn’t ask for a better guide than Gidney, even if some of his wisecracking prose does seem laid on a little thick at times.

With a healthy respect for the past, and an eye on the future, Kaufmann’s debut is a strong, complex novel with a protagonist who is far more than the homage he at first appears to be. It’s the start of a promising series, and one worth your time checking out.

THE HOLY THIEF by William Ryan 978-0230742734

Set in Stalin’s Russia, William Ryan’s The Holy Thief is inevitably going to be compared to the block-busting Child 44. But Ryan’s solid, assured debut novel deserves to stand on its own; an intriguing mix of political and social upheaval wrapped around the construct of a serial-killer thriller. This second half, while well executed, is perhaps the least interesting, but provides a solid framework for Ryan’s well-researched exploration of Soviet Society in the 1930’s. It helps, too, that the protagonist - Captain Alexei Dimitrevich Korolev – is relatable, and a strong enough character to carry the novel.

With an evocative and authoritative tone, an intriguing background and a conflicted, intriguing central; character, The Holy Thief is a strong and evocative debut from an author who deserves your attention, even if you’re not usually swayed by historical thrillers.

THE WHISPERERS by John Connolly, John Murray, 978-0340993507

Here at Crime Scene Scotland, we’re huge fans of Connolly’s healthy mix of hardboiled and paranormal, and have been waiting for The Whisperers since the game-changing end of the last Parker novel, The Lovers.

With the return of The Collector, and a convincing descent into veteran combat stresses as Charlie finds himself involved with soldiers recently returned from the middle east conflicts, this is one of the most affecting and disturbing Parker novels yet. The real world issues are handled beautifully and respectfully, and the now-solid supernatural elements are handled with a rare grace and restraint that leaves the reader chilled and unsettled by the end of the narrative. Particularly because, as ever with Connolly, the moral ambiguities leave one wondering whether the real horrors aren’t more human in their genesis than one might like to believe. There may be evil in Parker’s universe, but it comes as much from humans as it does from those mysterious and often only glimpsed exterior forces.

It also helps that Connolly has command over his prose, with a strong, beautiful voice that has become stronger with each passing novel, now effortlessly demanding and deserving the reader’s attention.

Connolly is one of the most unique thriller writers currently working, and The Whisperers continues to cement his unique brand of literary supernatural thriller. Simply put, Connolly is an author you have to read, and The Whisperers shows him at his finest.

KILLER by Dave Zelsterman, Serpent's Tail, 9781846686443

Leonard March, a former hitman, is out of jail and working as a janitor. But a past like his never truly goes away, and one vitruous act brings up memories and connections from his old life.

Zelsterman, along with Jason Starr, is one of the most talented chroniclers of the sociopathic mind currently working. His characters – mobsters, crooked cops, psychopathic hitmen – are masters of self-delusion and often makers of their own downfall. This short, sharp blast of a novel continues Zeltserman’s fearless exploration of criminal psychopathy with a strong narrative, a unique voice and a willingness to present the reader with protagonists who may not be inspirational or necessarily sympathetic, but are endlessly complex, fascinating and terrifying.

DARK BLOOD by Stuart MacBride, HarperCollins, 978-0007244607

From a promising debut through to being one of the most fascinating, dependable and darkly amusing Scottish crime writers of the moment, MacBride continues to subvert the traditional British Procedural with his latest entry in the Logan McRae series which finds a controversial criminal moving to Aberdeen, our normally stoic DS finally cracking under the stresses of the job, and a complex web of criminal activity giving the staff at FHQ a headache the suze of the city itself.

One of the things that MacBride has done more and more as the series has expanded is given the Grampian Police Force a very ensemble feel, so that while McRae may be the reader’s constant, the supporting cast are always coming to the fore, providing their own spin on events and frequently (as in the case of the wonderfully foul-mouthed DI Steel) stealing the show.

The humour is salty, sometimes crude, but always funny and very real. In reaction to the horrors of their job, MacBride’s CID feel very real in their gallows and occasionally juvenile senses of humour. We can laugh along with their joking in the offices, but when we see them out on the field, we know that they take their jobs very seriously indeed, and MacBride lets us see the cracks and strains that occur between the banter and the horror with a sometimes unexpected subtlety that creeps up on the reader. I’ve heard some people state that comedy is close to tragedy, and with MacBride the two often cross over quite beautifully with the sobering effect of making you laugh one minute and lose your breath with empathy the next.

Dark Blood is a violent, sometimes crude, often darkly amusing procedural from a hugely talented thriller writer whose work improves with each novel, who is always looking for new ways to surprise his readership. If you haven’t discovered MacBride yet, we recommend you start right now.

CAPTURED by Neil Cross (pb edition, Aug 2010) 978-1847394132

I admit I wasn’t hugely taken with Cross’s previous novel, Burial. While well-written and intriguing, the prose felt a little too pared back, and some of the characters perhaps missing in motivation. Here, in Captured, Cross hits the ground with all cylinders firing as this lean, stark novel tells the tale of Kenny, a man with a brain tumour, trying to find a girl who showed him some kindness while he was at school and discovering that she has recently gone missing.

His attempts to locate her start as honourable and quickly descend into a nightmare, made all the more unnerving by the fact that we, the audience, are unsure how much of what we learn is due to Kenny’s tumour causing him to act or think unpredictably. It’s a tense ride, well-suited to Cross’s minimalist style, and raises questions about moral responsibility and culpability that have no easy answers. Captured is not always a comfortable read but it is fascinating, terrifying and gripping with a resolution that will haunt you for a long time to come.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland, 01/06/10

Around The Internet: James Lee Burke on Rain Gods

2009-12-06T15:06:00.000-08:00

If you haven't read James Lee Burke, you should know he is a big favourite here at Crime Scene Scotland and the best argument for crime doing "literary" better than literary writers.

Here he is discussing his latest novel, RAIN GODS with daighter Alafair (also an excellent author in her own right):

No ordinary crime...

2009-11-08T13:27:00.000-08:00

We know we’ve been quiet for a while, but here is a collection of generally shorter reviews on recent novels that bend the crime genre. Most of these take elements from SF and play around with them in a crime/noir fashion, but the ones that grab our attention here at Crime Scene Scotland, tend to be the ones that do more than simply tell crime stories with Ray Guns. Presented here for your amusement are three of our favourite of the recent crop of genre-bending novels.

(we have excluded the excellent Pandaemonium by Christopher Brookmyre and the sublimely funny The Gates by John Connolly, on the basis that while these novels are brilliant and written by established crime writers, they do not really count as crime novels in any other sense – but trust me when I say that both these books come highly, highly reccomended)

FINCH by Jeff Vandermeer

Underland Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0980226010

A strange mix of hardboiled crime novel and fantasy/sf, Finch is one at first a murder mystery in a strange land that twists three quarters of the way through into a thriller of a very different type. But its credit to Vandermeer’s sheer skill as a writer that he holds the reader very well through this change in pace and tone, setting up a strange inevitability to the way in which his narrative twists and turns.

Set in the mysterious city of AmberGris, the plot follows a murder investigation as a local, human, cop investigates the bizarre murder of a human and a mysterious Gray Cap. In Vandermeer’s world, the Gray Caps dominate the city of AmberGris, ruling over humans, and this double murder is extremely unusual, probably linked – as detective Finch discovers – to rebel human groups whose wish is to overthrow the Gray Caps.

At first, Vandermeer’s staccato prose style can seem a little full on, a little too stylized. However, once you become adjusted to the rhythms, it is very clear that Vandermeer knows what he’s doing, and something in the prose adds to the alien air that permeates the entire novel.

Speaking of atmosphere, it is worth nothing that the world of Ambergris is rich and brilliantly realised. A grungy atmosphere lies heavy in the evocative and spare descriptions of this other world, and at times the reader can almost feel the slime of spores beneath their hands and experience the strange sensation of the organic technology that has replaced nearly every aspect of familiar human creation. It is clear that Vandermeer has created this world in a loving and intricate fashion, although at time for a reader who is virgin to this world, many of the references and history can seem a tad oblique and perhaps confusing to the reader as they try to figure the complex relationship shared between humans, gray-caps and the mysterious “partials”. There have, of course, been two previous novels set in the world of Ambergris, which may answer a few of the more ambiguous questions that readers have, and it is hard to escape the impression by the end of the novel that you have come in at the conclusion far larger than you have any hope of really understanding. That said, a little bit of guesswork and a sharp-minded reader should be able to figure out the basics and get on with losing themselves in the characters and the narrative.

What is particularly interesting with Finch is the fact that the crime/hardboiled elements work very well without tipping too far over the line into cliché. The temptation when mixing crime and SF is often to write a typical crime story with ray guns, but here Vandermeer ensures that the kind of crime and the ensuing investigation could not have worked in a typical and realist setting. This means that for every moment we think we know what is happening, something occurs to throw us off balance. The overarching conspiracy plot feels a little convoluted at times, but again this is perhaps more to do with how deeply the reader involves themselves with the world Vandermeer has created.

Finch is a class act. An intriguing blend of SF and hardboiled procedural, it succeeds through Vandermeer’s skill with narrative and his absolute belief in the world that he has created. Once you get used to Vandermeer’s world and his staccato prose style, you’ll find yourself rewarded with a story that goes beyond its simple opening premise and goes on to play with ideas that are much larger than you could ever expect. This is a story that could have been told in no other way; expands beyond its initial feeling of noir with fungal weaponry to become something far larger, stranger and more intriguing. And it does all of this while maintaining an emotional and very human core.

A genre-bending, intriguing, grimy and compelling novel, Finch is highly recommended.

ACTS OF DESTRUCTION by Mat Coward

Alia Mondo Press, 2009, ISBN 9780955868610

Better known for his gently amusing English mysteries featuring DI’s Packham and Mitchell, Coward’s latest novel represents something of a change in direction as he moves the action to London in the near future, where climate change and social upheaval has resulted in a society where horse-drawn transport is the norm, recycling is mandatory, wastefulness is illegal and food and fuel are tightly rationed.

A utopia?

Perhaps, but one that is formed from a series of disasters. And as we quickly discover, Coward is no fool, understanding that even in a society where people are – by necessity – more close knit and involved, there will still be those who attempt to subvert the law for their own ends. The North London Serious Crime Squad still have a full case load. Thefts from rooftop gardens, illegal preachers and now… two murders and a missing child.

Much of the novel plays as a commentary on our current society, and it would have been easy for Coward to play up the cynicism card here, tell us that unless we change our ways, we’re going to be screwed as a people. And for a while it seems as though his society – which harks back to a kind of 1950’s social construct – might be being placed as a possible replacement for the world we live in, now. But thankfully Coward also starts to show the cracks in this environmentally conscious Utopia, both through the attitudes of certain characters and the way in which the narrative resolves itself.

As ever, Coward’s writing is breezy and fast. He is a very British writer in many ways, capturing the very foibles of modern British – perhaps often more specifically English, I would have to say – society. The humour and the satire is gentle in its way, but incredibly effective, and belies the power of Coward’s political leanings which bubble just beneath the surface.

A thought provoking book which works on multiple levels, both as entertainment and commentary, Acts of Destruction is an undeniably British but very accessible novel that demonstrates Coward’s imaginative verve and breezy, extremely readable style.

HALFHEAD by Stuart B MacBride

Harpercollins, 2009, ISBN: 9780007298709

We’re long time fans of MacBride’s cheekily amusing, grotesquely black-comedy police procedurals here at Crime Scene Scotland, and the prospect of the man taking on the world of Science Fiction was something we have been looking forward to for a long time.

In HalfHead, MacBride concerns himself with a near-future Glasgow where the city is divided into two halves, with the underclasses living in cramped, high-rise conditions and occasionally being quelled by the police whizzing in and beating them about before leaving again to let the populace consider their lessons learnt. In this near future, violent offenders are dealt with though extreme surgery that lobotomises them and removes half of their face. These offenders are known as half head, and with their violent instincts (along with most of their personality) removed, they are used as menial workers and seen as little more than window dressing to the world. They move, unnoticed, unappreciated through society, unaware of the world around them in any real sense, existing in a kind of coma state.

Until one of them – one of the worst of them – wakes up.

MacBride’s vision of Scotland in the near future is most dystopian than anything I’ve read in a long time; working under the principle that while technology may change, people will not. As a result, the HalfHead is grimy, violent and often laugh out loud funny in the darkest possible sense. In short, if you’ve been digging his contemporary procedurals, you’ll get a real kick out of HalfHead.

One of the things that really stands out to me about HalfHead is the accessibility of it as a story. Having recently tried and failed to read Charles Stross’s Halting State, I was a bit wary about returning to a near future Scotland. But where Stross loses himself in extraneous details, MacBride simply assures us that this is how the world is and allows his story to unfold. There is no need to explain the inner workings of the Whompers and Thrummers; its enough to know that they are bloody big guns. And while there is clearly a backstory behind the new slums of Glasgow, MacBride merely posits their existence and shows us their effect on his characters, how they react to and talk about their world informs the reader far more simply than pages of clever exposition.

With HalfHead, MacBride shows us his power and his flexibility as an author. Its universe is an intriguing one that I hope we can return to (and certainly, the end of the book sets up some intriguing promises for the future), and I’m sure that fans of both SF and crime fiction will be clamouring to see more from the dystopian insanity of MacBride’s near future Glasgow. Until then, however, HalfHead stands alone blistering, hugely imaginative and smart entertainment with a twisted black sense of humour that would probably make future Glasgow’s most prolific serial killer, Dr Fiona Westfield, very proud indeed.

BURY ME DEEP by Megan Abbott

2009-08-08T05:14:00.000-07:00

Simon and Schuster, 2009 ISBN 978-1416599098

Bury Me Deep, Megan Abbott's fourth novel, is a 1930's set tale of abandonment, lust and painfully human mistakes that hooked this reader right from the first page. The voice - a beautifully choreographed, stylised and compelling third person narration - sucks you right in. Abandoned by her husband - a disgraced doctor who has gone to find work down in Mexico - in Pheonix, Marion Seeley finds work at a nearby medical clinic. With no life outside of work to speak of, she soon becomes enamoured with co-worker, Louise, a woman whose life outside of the wards seems exciting and glamorous to her innocent and naive new friend. But Louside isn't the one she has to worry about. When the charming and forceful Joe Lanigan appears on the scene, Marion soon discovers the dark side to her new friends' seemingly exuberant lifestyle and before long she finds herself sucked into a series of terrible events she could never have imagined.

As Abbott mentions in her afterword to this novel, Bury Me Deep is inspired by one of LA's most publicised true crime tales of the 1930's, that of "the trunk murderess" Winnie Ruth Judd. It was an intriguing, and Abbott's fictional re-imagining of what could have led to such a tragic end is both inspired its sheer imaginative power and the ferocity of Abbott's research which evokes the social, physical and historical power of the period. As I have previously mentioned, Abbott's voice is spellbinding; her prose literally singing, pulling you in, making you believe every word you're reading. What is most impressive is the way that Abbott fools into believing the contemporary nature of her prose. The rhythm feels very much of the time, and yet maintains a modern sparseness and directness that means the book feels absolutely immediate to the reader. You are quite literally pulled back in time with Abbott, experiencing her 1930's noir world as though it were real, and the world you experience from day to day was the fiction.

One of the major driving themes behind the novel is the seduction of sin. Like a female Ellroy, Abbott revels in the allure of the underground party scene, and the transformation of Marion from an innocent and surprised outsider to a willing participant in some truly unsettling affairs is compelling and so utterly natural that the reader finds themselves as surprised as Marion at the changes that occur within her life. Its a compelling theme and one that Abbott makes her own, asking where the line blurs between our fascination with the wild lifestyle and our actual participation within it.

Bury Me Deep is an incredible period piece and a stunning noir novel that examines a moment of history we all thought we knew from a different and fascinating perspective. Abbott's pitch perfect storytelling pulls the reader into a dark and unsettling world, and her clear love of her source material combined with deep research shines through, resulting in a novel that is immersive, addictive and darkly beautiful.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland, 08/08/09

TOWER by Ken Bruen and Reed Farrel Coleman

2009-08-07T16:22:00.000-07:00

Busted Flush Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1935415077

Tower is the real deal; a collaborative novel that feels absolutely cohesive. Two voices that tell one strong tale, fusing together to create a whole that grabs the reader by the neck and shakes them to make sure they’re paying close attention. Sure, it helps that individually, Bruen and Coleman are two of the best authors working the crime and noir beats today, but it takes more than two talented authors to create a successful collaboration. There has to be, somewhere, a common purpose and a clarity of intent that allows the reader to quit guessing at who wrote what or trying to spot the compromises and bargaining that was made between the authors and simply appreciate the book in the same they would one written by a single author.

Let’s put it this way – even if I didn’t know the works of both authors, I would still consider Tower to be a damn fine novel.

The central conceit – two narratives that run parallel – is not groundbreaking, but it feels that way, told with such confidence and assurance. Read one narrative, you’ve got a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, but the beauty of Tower is the fact that reading both narratives destroys your conceits and pre-conceptions; you spend the second half of the book trying to figure just how much you really knew in the first place.

And you want to know.

You have to know.

On the one side, you got Nicky, an Irish New Yorker with a hell of a temper and a habit of keeping bad company, and on the other you got Todd, maybe Nick’s best friend, and a guy with his own secrets and worries. Starting with a B&E that goes badly wrong, the two men sink deeper into troubles of their own making, soon finding themselves hip deep in bodies, mobsters and undercover cops. It’s a tale of friendship, loyalty and choices that, in certain scenes – and certain themes, as well – reminded this reviewer very much of Scorcese’s recent Boston crime melodrama, The Departed.

Tower’s construction is beautiful. In his introduction, Coleman talks about the early stages of the book and how the need for an epilogue and prologue really enhanced these two narratives, and he is spot on in his evaluation. I do not know precisely how they wrote these sections, but they both work beautifully, setting up the mood and cementing themes and ideas so that the novel feels solid. The connections between the two narratives are enhanced, and loose ends are perhaps not tied up, but certainly treated with respect, allowing the reader a sense of closure.

Both narratives are told in modifications – gentle ones – of the author’s own unique styles. And, yes, if you care about such things, you will know who wrote what narrative but its not something the authors have made a secret of. The result is a novel that truly flows. Had both participants stuck to their own styles rigidly, there would have been a complete disconnect. But for the world of difference that exists between Todd and Nick, there is also a sense of connection and continuity.

What we think we know of one character is changed utterly from another point of view. While the reader could be forgiven for thinking they know what’s happening when they read the first narrative, believing they’ve uncovered that major twist, the second narrative manages to twist our perceptions and ideas so that we view Nicky’s story in a whole new light. It’s a neat trick, and only two writers at the top of their game could have managed it.

Worth noting, too, is the fact that – as ever – publisher Busted Flush has packed the book to the brim with extras, including the aforementioned introduction by Coleman, interviews with both players and their editor (King of Scots Noir, Allan Guthrie). The extras are interesting for the insights they give into how the novel came about, and how each writer had to adapt to the book’s needs. Its fascinating material, and the kind of attention to detail that Busted Flush is becoming known for.

Ultimately, of course, the writing of the novel speaks for itself. Even without the benefit of supplementary material, Tower makes its presence known with a roar. The plot drags you along, and Nick and Todd are the best kind of protagonists. Like the book itself, they are compelling, complex and dangerously unpredictable.

Collaborations are nothing new in the world of literature, but Tower makes its mark in its compelling, two-tiered structure, its layered narrative and the way in which its author’s complement and enhance each other. If you love punchy, layered and stylish crime fiction, then believe me when I say that you’re going to adore Tower.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland, 08/08/09

THE TWELVE by Stuart Neville

2009-07-02T03:44:00.000-07:00

Harvill-Secker, 2009, 978-1846552793, £12.99

In the last couple of years, it feels like all the best new crime fiction has been coming out of Ireland. A willingness to confront political and societal issues combined with a blistering array of voices means that Irish crime and thriller fiction is currently among the most exctiting work being created.

New and beloved voices here at Crime Scene have included Ken Bruen, Declan Hughes, Declan Burke, Brian McGilloway, Bateman, John Connolly and now we can add Stuart Neville to that list.

The Twelve of the title refers to twelve ghosts who have appeared to former paramilitary killer Gerry Fegan. These ghosts are those who were killed during his life throughout the troubles, and now they are demanding vengeance. Its not Gerry they want dead, however. They need him as their instrument. They want Gerry to seek out those who were responsible for their deaths. They will not kill the gun, but the people who pulled the trigger.

Searching for peace, Gerry cuts a bloody path through the hypocrisy of a new peace, causing not only personal but political chaos as he seeks to set these troubled souls to rest.

Its a brilliant premise, made even more chilling by Neville's refusal to utterly settle down on a concrete explanation for the ghosts. Like fellow Irish writer John Connolly, Neville shrouds the supernatural elements of the title with a terrifying ambiguity. Read this how you like; either Gerry is truly haunted, or he is shattered by his own experiences and the twelve are little more than a manifestation of his own self loathing.

As the book kicks into gear, Neville explodes the hypocrisy and terror of modern politics, giving us killers who have reinvented themselves as politicians and officials who are every bit as guilty as those they would condemn. His vision of Ireland has been shattered by its past, unable to lay any of its ghosts to rest making the Twelve as much a damning political novel as it is a straight forward thriller.

Neville is the kind of fierce new voice that the thriller genre cries out for. His prose is sharp and deadly, his characters never less than complex. And for all The Twelve could easily have been a simple drama of revenge, a kind of Death Wish with an Irish accent, it feels somehow deeper and any answers you think have been offered are tempered with further questions. This is a thinking man's thriller, as philosophical as it is visceral, and a novel I urge you to out and read. Right now.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland, 08/08/09

THE DISSASEMBLED MAN by Nate Flexer

2009-06-17T15:47:00.000-07:00

New Pulp Press, 9780981557908

Nate Flexer's debut is a modern psycho noir in the tradition of Jim Thompson that is one of the first books to be published by New Pulp Press. It is the story of Frankie Avicious, a man whose life is on the skids, who finds himself listening to the advice of a mysterious travelling salesman and finally setting out to take from life what he rightfully believes to be his. From the very start, when we see Frankie at his job mercilessly killing cattle for his rich father in law, we know we're we're in for a gruesome and cold-hearted journey into the dark side of the American landscape.

As a manifesto for New Pulp Press, The Dissasembled Man is a fine example of the intent and attitude of this new small publisher. The novel is lean and mean - with the emphasis on mean - a true psycho-noir novel that leaves the reader to work out the truth behind events we can only see from the point of view of the protagonist. At Crime Scene Scotland, we have a weakness for unreliable narrators, and Frankie is one of the most unreliable you could hope for. There is a whole world going on just outside of his narrow vision and the reader has to figure out just how much of the world we are seeing through this man's eyes. The twist that comes maybe two thirds of the way through the book ups the stakes even more and those last few pages are a real mindbender. To say much more would be to spoil the ride, but this is the kind of book that you could find yourself arguing over how to interpret. And that's a damn good thing.

The only true problem with The Dissasembled Man comes from a few stumbles in the authorial voice. While Frankie is a decidedly unreliable narrator whose true nature comes to light through the unfolding of the narrative rather than through what he tells us, at times he seems to have these bursts of lyrical and near literary observations that come across unnatural given the set up of his general tone and demeanour. Whether these are meant to imply the gradual fracturing of his mind, or to hint the reader that all is not as it seems, I'm not sure. But they don't flow as naturally as one might expect, detracting from the burning pace of the narrative. Basically, whenever Frankie becomes too verbose for his own good, the spell is momentarily shattered and the reader is reminded that they are reading a novel.

But taken as a whole, The Dissasembled Man is a damn fine read; a brilliant and raw example of the Psycho Noir genre, and a move back to the point of view of the disenfranchised American heartland that seems to have been ignored lately by a great deal of crime fiction. Flexer's world is one of losers and drifters and grifters and hard luck cases who came into this world with bad luck and only accumulated more as they grew up. The spirit of Thompson hangs heavy over this novel which feels at once part of the old pulp movement and also timeless; the America described in this novel is near mythical in its refusal to tie itself down to a year or era more than "now". There are hints of incest and immorality that are simply part of the fabirc of the life, and you know that Flexer's world is a world of the damned. Is there hope? There is only the hope of hope, and that adds a vicious streak to the novel that some may find unpalatable, but which those who dig the whole psycho-noir genre - particularly the cold and amoral world of early Jason Starr - are going to clamour around. And perhaps that should serve as a warning, too. Like many of Starr's character, Avicious is often unpalatable and plain repulsive. He's not a guy you're going to warm to, but he's absolutely fascinating and unsettling; a bold choice of narrator and if you prefer your characters to be fascinating rather than sympathetic, Avicious is your man. And, like Frankie, the book itself is too mean to be sympathetic, too damn tough to be loved and too screwed to be forgiven, and yet those pages turn as you find yourtself descending into the literal hell of one man's mind. This is unforgiving stuff, about as far from commercial crime as you could get, and damn did we love it here at Crime Scene Scotland.

And then there's that ending... is it a metaphysical, allegorical or plain loony tunes twist? Hard to say without discussing it, but suffice to say its going to stay with you for a long time even if all you're trying to do is figure out the truth.

Despite a roughness around the edges - which perhaps also gives it its charm - The Dissasembled Man is an excellent psycho-noir; A fine start for New Pulp, and a bold and disturbing debut from Flexer, read this one at the risk of your own sanity.

Russel D McLean for Crime Scene Scotland, 1/07/09

GUTTED by Tony Black

2009-04-19T14:35:00.001-07:00

Preface, June 2009, £16.99, ISBN 9781848090521

Gus Dury knows this much: he's a rager. His life is fuelled by anger, both impotent and justified, at personal aquaintances and those he's never met. His righteous fury has been curbed by harsh reality and his own limitations. In any other story he'd be heroic. Here, he's a man with no power trying his damndest to kick against all the wrongs he sees in the world.

And maybe this makes him a hero, too.

Tony Black's second novel (following from 2008's stunning Paying For It) finds Dury once again getting involved in events which others believe he has no business snooping around him. Driven by this rage and a self-destructive need to follow those he percieves as innocent into hell, Drury finds himself trying to save a dog and stumbling across a mutilated corpse. Its only the first step into a sinister world that will find Gus truly tested, physically, mentally and morally as he tries to maintain his own sense of justice in a world that constantly conspires to push him over the edge.

Gutted is fuelled by Dury's rage. At injustice both political and personal. Black's debut, Paying For It laid bare certain realities about the streets of modern Scotland, and now Gutted rips even further into our national psyche. Its exploration of class and corruption - two words that tear at the heart of our nation's politics, more-so than the smoke screen of "independence" that has become the popular image - exposes our inadequacies and shortcomings. And yet this is tempered by a deep love of our country and people. To truly love something, it seems, sometimes you have to acknowedlege the flaws inherent within it. And Black exposes our flaws, brings them out into the light so that we can see them. And we deal with them.

For all of this subtext, it is true that Black writes a terrific and furiously paced novel. Like the best of noir, the action is fast and yet never sacrifices the characters who drive it. Dury himself is a beautiful set of contradictions. His anger comes from love, and the revelations in this book about his marriage and why it was doomed to fail from the start are utterly heartbreaking and again motivated by that deep and driving rage at the ways in which people judge each other for actions that are, in the end, no one else's business.

What is more than incredible is that Black can make a character who - in a two second soundbite - might sound like someone we've seen before come across as engagingly fresh and convincingly alive. The alcoholic, crusading ex-journalist who only wants redemption even if he'll never find it? Dury is so much more than a soundbite, and that is where Black's true skills lie: he creates endlessly fascinating narratives and characters with hidden and unexpected layers.

Black is also a beautiful prose stylist. His voice comes roaring off the page, a scream of anger at the world. While Paying for It at times wore its influences on its sleeve, here Black is far more certain and sure of his own voice. We can still the influence on authors like Ken Bruen, but now Black's own voice shines through clearer, adapting his own tricks and ticks to great and mesmerising effect.

Black will make you rage like Dury at the world and he will break your heart just as easily. With Gutted, he continues to carve his own unique and dark portrait of modern Scotland. With a tour guide like Gus, you'll be taken beyond the tourist traps and tartan tat to the true torrid heart of modern Scotland.

If you haven't read Black, you're missing out on one of the best new voices to emerge from Scotland in the last few years. One of the best new voices to enter the genre, period. Miss out on this one and you will truly be Gutted.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland.com, 17/06/09

LOSER'S TOWN by Daniel Depp

2009-04-04T04:05:00.000-07:00

Simon And Shuster, March 2009, 9781847374073

Ex-stuntman turned PI David Spandau knows the truth about tinsel-town, understands the egos and deceptions that make up the factory of dreams. So when he's asked to protect a new hot star who's got himself in a world of bother with local mobsters, he's under no illusions about the kind of trouble he's getting into.

But Hollywood is the kind of place that eats up your expectations and spits them out on the sidewalk. And while Spandau can deal with Hollywood, is he really ready to take on the mob?

Depp's debut is peppered with the kind of punchy dialogue you would expect from a screen writer and the kind of scarbarous attacks on the world of Holly-weird that comes from years of being an industry insider.

However, all this lifting off the lid of tinsel-town is nothing we haven't seen before. From insecure stars who want to be famous more than they want to be good at their craft to cynical agents who won't talk to anyone they don't know to be important to the criminals who want an "in" to the dream factory... Loser's Town reads like a laundry list of other books. Spandau himself could have walked right of an Elmore Leonard novel. He's got the right kind of background and the kind of shady heroism that Leonard's heroes do so well. And our mobster wanting a piece of the action, he's grand, but no Ray Barboni; nothing to lift him up and let him stay in our conscious. The background characters - from the self-involved agent to the young movie star who's psychologically unprepared for the stratospheric level of fame that he's been thrust into - are all interesting enough, but could easily have come direct from central casting.

All This Holly-weird stuff has been covered many times in films such as What Just Happened? and of course in novels such as Rob Long's Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke. or in a more direct parallel, Steven Bochco's novel, Death by Hollywood which shares many of this novel's pros and cons leaving the reader to wonder whether its something in the way that working in the movie and TV business that makes you see the world a certain way. And while there's no denying that Depp does a great job of setting up his world, he's really not giving us much that we haven't seen before.

Which is a great pity, because Depp's natural prose style and ability to create empathy with his characters, even those we have seen before is perfectly evident. Depp appears to be a talented writer but the sheer deja-vu of Loser's Town robs it of any real power.

Perhaps, of course, the familiarity of Depp's situations and characters is also part of the point; Hollywood is a town where the familiar masquerades as the innovative, where the people are so sheltered that they do not know anything beyond the world of La-La land.

Loser's Town is a fun read, but is unfortunately not a book that's really going to stay with you any length of time. Its a well written thriller that shows promise for Depp's future as a novelist, but to really grab our attention next time out he's going to need to give us something we haven't seen before.

Russel D McLean for Crime Scene Scotland, 19/04/09

More we missed in 2008

2009-03-21T05:36:00.000-07:00

Every year at Crime Scene Scotland we get sent more books than we can handle. Not that we're complaining, mind you. We try and give every one a fair chance of getting read and reviewed, but some get left behind. So at the beginning of each new year a catch up post allows Crime Scene Scotland to give the skinny on those books from last year we missed out on the first time around.

Trigger City By Sean Chercover,

William Morrow, 2008, 978-0061128691, $23.95

Chercover has been up for all the big awards in the last year for his debut, Big City, Bad Blood and deservedly so: the novel breathed new life into the PI genre, one more step in its rejuvenation for the 21st century.

At Crime Scene Scotland, we dug the debut and were hyped to read Trigger City when it came across the welcome mat of the our secret Head Quarters. But it was with an air of uncertainty that we cracked the spine... could it live up to Chercover's debut offering?

The answering is a resounding yes. But more, Trigger City trumps Big City, Bad Blood to a massive degree. The narration, from world weary Chicago investigator Ray Dudgeon feels increasingly confident, the voice clearer and the humour less awkard than before. Chercover's style is massively natural, his voice engagingly human. Ray's personal and professional lives are increasingly developed here, particularly his relationship with (?) that becomes more complex and sometimes heartbreakingly believable as the novel progresses.

But what Chercover does to truly impress is mix this focus on the personal with an unexpected political canvas. It is unusual to read a novel whose focus feels so personal and yet whose scope is massively wide. As Ray investigates the life of a murderer who apparently took his own life, he stumb les across military and political conspiracies with some wide-reaching implications. Its at this point most novels implode under the weight of their own plots, but Chercover's stylish prose and focus on character allows him the leeway to explore larger issues within the scope of his thriller and not lose his characters in the bigger picture.

Trigger City merely confirms what those of us who read Big City, Bad Blood already knew: if there's any justice in the world, Sean Chercover is destined for great things.

The Drop Off by Patrick Quinlan

Headline, 2008, 9780755335497, £19.99

Quinlan's easy going style that wore its influences on the page in Smoked, before beginning to loosen its inspirational shackles in The Takedown here begins to feel utterly natural, a voice that has very much become the author's own. While still recalling the cool of Elmore Leonard, Quinlan adds his own spin to the cool, laconic voice and easygoing storytelling to create a thriller that simply flies by.

And as cool as it is, Quinlan never forgets that for all their posturing, his characters are real human beings. Returning to "Smoke" Duggan, his on-off, karate-expert love interest Lola and their partners in crime from SMOKED, Quinlan manages to evolve their relationships, creating a dynamic that flows from his earlier novel and yet changes the stakes for everyone involved. Sure, we'd all love to live in a cool-as-ice gangster movie, but what Quinlan does is cleverly show us the true downsides, especially when he takes the opportunity to get inside Lola's head as she tries to sort out the Smoke Duggan she thought she knew from the man he really is. And while Pamela, who's definitely digging being the girlfriend of a criminal named Cruz, seems to buy into the fantasy, her occasional realisation of the reality of her situation add more depth not simply to her character but to the novel as well.

Not that The Drop Off isn't also great fun, because it is: the action moves fast and the dialogue and set pieces retain that Leonard/Tarrantino hybrid that's fast become Quinlan's trade mark. The Drop Off is great fun, and Quinlan is one of those crime writers who just leaves you with a great big damn smile on your face.

The Deceived by Brett Battles

Preface Books, 2008, 9781848090286, £6.99

We'd still buy his books for the author name alone, but luckily Battles is one of those gifted thriller writers whose works keep the pages turning.

The second Jonathan Quinn finds the erstwhile cleaner going freelance following the events in The Cleaner, and still training up his apprentice, Nate. But when Quinn's latest job involves getting rid of the corpse of an old friend, he finds himself back in the dangerous underworld of conspiracies and government agencies with shady agendas.

Battles' style is fast, simple and clean: like reading a great action movie, you have a real sense of pace and character. And while the action is often thrilling, Battles never forgets about the characters in the midst of the chaos and nicely develops both major and secondary characters, even if the two potential femme-fatales - who sometimes feel a little more like MacGuffins than real people, but then maybe this is how Quinn sees them - come across as a little underdeveloped compared to many of the other characters in the book. Luckily, Quinn's developing relationship with the deadly beauty Orlando makes up for this, and when it counts, Battles really knows how to put his leads through the ringer.

The Cleaner was one of our favourite action thrillers of the past few years, and with The Decieved, Battles continues to entertain and get us turning those pages in a feverish anticipation of wanting to know what happens next...

Empty Ever After by Reed Farrel Coleman

Bleak House Books, 9781932557657, $14.95

One of the things that continues to impress us with the Moe Prager mysteries - whether Coleman intended this from the beginning or not - is how tightly connected each book in the series is. While they can be read alone, the emotional impact is even more impressive when you understand what has gone before.

If there is a central theme throughout the Prager books it seems to be that the past never truly dies; it is always reaching out to the future, as thought desperate to drag us back. And in no book has this been so self-evident than in Empty Ever After, which hearkens back to events in the first of the series, Walking The Perfect Square.

Coleman's writing is gripping, and his psychology fascinating. The Prager books have been among the most intriguing and unquely structured detective novels we've read in a long time, and Empty Ever After confirms and continues that impression. If there is one word of warning, we would say that its advisable to have read at least Walking the Perfect Square (available in reprint from Busted Flush Press along with Redemption Street and The James Deans) before starting this latest entry. Not only because its a wonderful novel in its own right, but doing so only enhances the emotional impact that drives Moe headlong into this investigation of his own past.

Russel D McLean for Crime Scene Scotland, 1/04/09

BEAST OF BURDEN by Ray Banks

2009-03-17T15:07:00.000-07:00

Polygon, 2009, ISBN 9781846970986, £9.99

Please note that this review contains spoilers for previous books in the Cal Innes series. For those who have not read these novels, certain sections have been highlighted in dark grey. Please skip these sections if you have not read the previous novels in the series.

The problem with many series characters is that, after a while, they can lose their freshness. That very thing which made them unique in the beginning soon becomes trite and predictable. Twelve or thirteen novels in, suddenly the audience knows what to expect, loses any sense that their protagonist's world might suddenly shift and change.

From the beginning, Ray Banks has claimed that his Cal Innes books will have a finite arc. That Innes - one of the most flawed and intriguing of recent hardboiled protagonists - will change during the course of each book, will carry every scar earned, will be affected by everything that happens to him.

By the end of the third novel, No More Heroes, Innes had battled Codeine addiction, his own antipathy and been battered by cars, bricks, guns and fists. And then, just when you thought things couldn't get any worse, Banks showed his commitment to battering his protagonist by giving Innes a stroke in the midst of one of the worst race riots Manchester has ever seen.

As endings go, No More Heroes was a shocker. But Banks knows that he cannot cheat his reader and continues to play out the effects on Innes to a blinding degree. It is interesting to read a series character who maintains his essential characteristics and yet manages to evolve with each book. Here, even if Innes won't admit it, there is a definite shift in his character that may even be for the better. He is more humble than he has been before, even if he tries to deny that side of himself. He shouts and roars as loud as ever, and yet seems to have a more of a sense of self awareness than he ever had before. But this being Banks's world, it may be too little too late.

Beast of Burden attempts to tie up some of the dangling threads in Innes's life. By starting with Innes once more doing a favour for local gangster Morris Tiernan, we get a sense of some events coming full circle. You see, Tiernan's son Mo - drug dealer, waster and pain in Innes's arse - is missing. Tiernan wants Innes to find the lad. After all, Innes is a private investigator, right? No longer a wannabe, he's got a partner and a logo. This is his kind of work.

And it would be a simple job if it wasn't for the bad blood between Innes and Mo. Or the fact that one DS "Donkey" Donkin, last seen harrassing Innes in Saturday's Child, is hanging around, looking to hang Innes out to dry.

Banks has a number of ends to tie up in this final Innes novel, and he does a remarkable job of dealing with many seemingly disparate elements to create a coherent whole. More than any other entry in the Innes series, it probably helps if you've read the other novels, but then this is a sequence and not a series, so events have been building for some time anyway. The conclusion to Innes's run ins with Mo Tiernan is surprising and perhaps even a little jarring (here's a hint, do NOT read the acknowledgements first if you're the kind of person who does that: you're in for a major spoiler) but Banks is a fiendishly smart author and this unexpected move pays off beautifully. As with the other books in the series, this is all about how Innes reacts to a given situation, and the Mo Tiernan case gives him the kind of grief that truly tests a person.

And what is wonderful is that Innes doesn't pass with flying colours. Unlike many protagonists in the current crime fiction sphere, he is no superman. He does not neccasarily overcome his own demons. While he grows and develops as a character, Banks never forgets to allow him to make mistakes. Often huge or ugly ones. And this is why Innes is one of the best developed characters going in crime fiction: he is human, often in the worst possible ways.

But while Innes makes his mistakes, they often come from something approaching good intentions. And while we've seen him change over the course of five novels, no argument would make a difference to Banks's secondary narrator in the novel, DS "Donkey" Donkin. Donkin's narrative voice is scarred through with bitterness and resentment. He is the real-life version of a an old school copper relic like Gene Hunt from Life on Mars, except he's not cuddly or cute, given to moments of unnatural compassion - he's simply damn terrifying; a true dinosaur stampeding down the path towards his own extinction. On the subject of Innes, Donkin believes that no one can ever change. That Innes is as much of a fuck up as he ever was. But for men like Donkin, the world never changes. Change is a terrifying thing, and his rage at anything that threatens his concrete world view is a terrifying thing to behold.

While Banks has done the split voice before, in Saturday's Child, here he shows us true mastery by giving Donkin a unique voice that practically roars off the page. Banks, as a writer, is a true chameleon, never allowing the author to step out from behind his characters to take a bow. He truly makes the reader believe in the absolute and concrete reality of his character's voices.

We've said it before, and we'll say it again, that Banks is one of our favourite UK-based writers here at Crime Scene Scotland. He combines a ferocious voice with an understanding of modern Britain that refuses to hide or soften its blows behind the ramped up and improbably plotting of many current crime thrillers. Like Ted Lewis or Derek Raymond, Banks writes novels set in an unremittingly real world. And in the real world, all things - good and bad - must come to an end. So this book serves as Cal Innes's swan song. And as endings go, this one is tragic, compelling, gripping: a perfect finale to an incredible noir sequence.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland.com 17/03/09

Red Riding

2009-03-05T10:03:00.000-08:00

Tonight, 9pm, Channel 4, the first of three film adaptations of David Peace's incredible Red Riding Quartet (yes, three films, although there were four novels). A review of the four original novels is being constructed as we speak. The four novels are absolutely incredible, if emotionally exhausting to read, and the films should deservedly find them a whole new readership. The next two films will be shown over the next two weeks on Thursday at 9pm.

In the meantime, the official channel 4 website is at www.redriding.channel4.com and the trailer is embedded below:

BLEED A RIVER DEEP, Brian McGilloway

2009-03-04T14:10:00.000-08:00

MacMillan, April '09, ISBN 978-0230701366, £12.99

In the last few years, Ireland has been consistently upping the stakes with its contribution to the world of crime fiction. From cult figures such as Ken Bruen to bestsellers such as Tana French and John Connolly, the world of Irish crime fiction has never been more vibrant.

And now we can add the name of Brian McGilloway to the list.

His latest Inspector Devlin novel takes place with Irelands very own literal gold rush. Devlin is assigned to the security of a gold mine that has been opened up following the discovery of a possible seam near his patch. Its the perfect metaphor for the new money that has been pumping into Ireland these last few years, a theme that many of these writers - including Declan Hughes and Ken Bruen - have been dealing with, but McGilloway adds his own spin on proceedings as he proceeds to view proceedings from the view of Ireland's police force, the Garda; contrasting nicely with the private investigator and outsider heroes that have seemed more preferential in other Irish Crime fiction of late. McGilloway also touches on issues of immigration, human trafficking and other moral and political questions during the rapid course of his narrative. As with the best crime fiction, the commentary is hidden between the lines.

The character of Devlin himself is a fine creation and singles himself out from the herd of series characters constantly jostling for attention on the Crime Fiction scene. He's a damn fine copper. Headstrong, sure, but balanced and professional. Maybe he doesn't see eye to eye with his bosses, but he's a family man with a strong moral streak in him. Don't mistake any of this for dullness or weakness, however. When his moral code is challenged, Devlin rises to the challenge and pays the price professionally and sometimes personally for his dedication to the meaning of the job over the procedure of it all.

Bleed a River Deep was Crime Scene Scotland's first exposure to the work of McGilloway, and given this tight, smartly written and gripping third novel, it won't be our last.

Russel D McLean for CrimeSceneScotland.com, 6/01/09

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE by Steig Larsson

2009-01-04T15:57:00.000-08:00

Maclehouse Press, an imprint of Quercus Books, January 2009, ISBN 9781847245564, £16.99

The second in Larrson's Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire has quite a legacy to live up to. The first in the series sold 3 million copies, garnering a huge amount of attention from both critics and readers.

It is clear from the start that the trilogy has been carefully planned by author Larrson, with plot strands from the first book being swiftly picked up as the narrative thunders along. Its a nice change from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo which started a little too slowly for this reviewer's tastes, and shows a confidence in the reader that they will be able to cotton on to what has happened before. In a case like this, then, if you haven't read the first novel it will be best to go and play catch up.

The focus here is clearly on the fascinating Lisbeth Salander; the standout character from Larrson's debut novel. A highly introverted mix of control and anger, Salander is a beautiful excercise in contradiction. At one point, a character claims he would have diagnosed her with Aspergers, but that her condition is far more complicated than even that. And while the events of The Girl Who Played With Fire - a title that eventually proves to have at least two meanings in the course of the narrative - may go some way to explaning who she is and how her mind works, there is still a great deal about her that goes unexplained and that is what adds to the intrigue and mystery here.

Larrson is extremely adept at mixing the personal and the political in his complex and winding plot; something that was a little off kilter in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which occasionally leant more towards the political polemic than the personal. Here the mix is just right, and Salander is the perfect vehicle for what is clearly Larsson's righteous anger at the evils of the world. The original Swedish title for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo apparently translated as Men Who Hate Women, a title that could just as easily apply here. Indeed, Larsson's anger at the way society and individuals can treat people burns through the narrative with a righteous indignation, although it does not mean that he shies away from the evil that people may do. No, he often confronts it painfully and directly. And most appealingly he does so without relying too heavily on the bogey-men psychopaths that many thriller writers opt to stand in for evil. Of course, one character who appears to feel no pain comes close, but manages to stay on just the right side of believable.

While Larsson's political and social motivations are worn on his sleeve, he has learned not to let them overshadow the emotional impact of his second novel. It is rare that a novel has me shouting out in anger at characters or situations, but as this one raced (and for such a large novel, with such complex themes, this one moves with incredible pace) towards its climax, there were several moments that had me reading with jaw dropped.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is an excellent second act in what could prove to be a long talked about classic sequence of the thriller genre. With genuine concerns driving the narrative and a showpiece character in the form of the fascinating Lisbeth Salander, the Millennium Trilogy is shaping up to be an exciting and literate series that should excite and incite readers in equal measure.

Russel D McLean for CrimeSceneScotland.com, 05/01/09

Donald E Westlake (Richard Stark) passes

2009-01-02T00:59:00.000-08:00

The creator of Dortmunder and (under the name Richard Stark) master criminal Parker has passed away. He died on wednesday 29 December, 2008 aged 75.

At Crime Scene Scotland, as well as enjoying Westlake's lighter, more comic novels, we were massive fans of the Parker books. To us they did everything a good crime novel should and by eschewing unneccesary sentimentality from the narration, Stark was the ideal pen name for these novels and Parker was one of the truly great creations in all of fiction.

A giant figure in the world of crime and mystery fiction, Westlake will be sorely missed.

Obituary in the International Herald Tribune

PARIAH by Dave Zeltserman

2009-01-01T14:09:00.001-08:00

Serpent's Tail, 2009, ISBN 978-1846686436, £7.99

Its rare that a meta novel ends up being entertaining as well as clever, but Dave Zeltserman’s excellent new novel, Pariah manages that trick very successfully; at once a noir-ish kidnap novel and an attack on the nature of celebrity memoir, plagiarism and the worst excesses of the publishing industry.

The book itself – the manuscript for a book by Boston gangster Kyle Nevin – takes the form of a first person narrative with editorial notes scattered throughout, presumably to our protagonist’s editor. It is unclear at first why we are seeing these notes, but as the story twists and turns (and, oh, does it twist) these editorial intrusions become not only part of Zeltserman’s meta-commentary but also hint that not everything may be as clear as we think it is.

As the book opens, Kyle Nevin finds himself released from prison, looking for revenge on the old boss who put him there. If there’s one thing Kyle can’t abide, it’s a rat. And his boss was the biggest rat of all. So when Kyle does his time – like a man – he comes looking for revenge and satisfaction. His outright anger and near uncontrollable ego lead him into a kidnapping plot that goes horribly wrong and results in an unexpected celebrity and a publishing deal with a New York House. At this point, Zeltserman’s meta-narrative kicks into overdrive and we’re treated to a sometimes subtle, other times not-so, look at the nature of fame, the pitfalls of celebrity tell-alls and the all out pain of plagiarism. Except this is a noir novel, so there’s plenty more sex (or is there?) and violence to come.

As to that twisting plot, there are enough turns here to make some people car sick and yet the novel runs to under 300 pages. Clearly Zeltserman is in control of his action and his characters and this stripped down narrative moves at a blistering pace. Of course, Zelsterman has set himself a difficult task in his choice of narrative voice, walking the line between his own skills as an author and Kyle Nevin’s general naiveté when it comes to writing a novel. But the end result is more than readable, sometimes painfully punchy and authentic enough to allow us to believe that Nevin is the voice behind the story we’re being told.

Pariah’s central conceit is hardly breaking new ground – we’ve seen the same topics lampooned to one degree or another throughout film and literature before – but feels very appropriate to the current times within publishing and the world in general. Some of the targets do seem a little too obvious, with James Frey and OJ Simpson being rather clearly referenced, and the publishing execs with whom Nevin deals are maybe drawn a little too broadly. although, perhaps this, too, is the point; Nevin clearly sees the world in far more broad colours than most of us would – many of the secondary characters are almost dismissed in his eyes, with the feeling that perhaps they live other lives beyond the page or may not have behaved in quite the way Nevin describes. After all, the unreliable nature of literature is perhaps one of the points Zeltserman is trying to drive home here.

Ultimately, Pariah is another gripping and clever tale from the author of the incredible Small Crimes. Its inventive format holds together well, and while some of the satire may be a little obvious, the novel has a mischievously black sense of humour that more than endears itself to the reader. On top of this, Pariah is just a damn fine tale of noir that continues Zelsterman’s fascination with unreliable protagonists that began in Small Crimes. Highly readable and highly recommended along with Zeltserman’s blistering first novel for Serpent’s Tail, Small Crimes.

Russel D McLean for Crimescenescotland.com, 1/01/09

AUDITION - Ryu Murakami

2008-12-25T15:18:00.000-08:00

Bloomsbury, 2009, ISBN 9780747589488, £10

A couple of years ago, a friend passed me a copy of In the Miso Soup, with the warning that it was going to be messed up. And yet gloriously wonderful. My first exposure to the twisted world of Ryu Murakami was devoured fast; even when nothing appears to be happening, Murakami appears to be setting themes and threats bubble beneath the relatively innocuous surface of his prose, leaving the reader desperate to discover what dirty secrets and noiresque monstrosities will finally emerge at the novel’s climax.

Audition – and yes, it is the inspiration for the unsettling movie by Takashi Miike – follows in a similar pattern. The innocuous beginning – Why don’t you find yourself a wife, pops? – leads the reader down a path that rapidly diverges from anything we expect to be normal. The novel takes its time in setting up the central character of widowed Japanese businessman, Aoyama, introducing us to the painful loss of his wife and his near selfish need to find some form of companionship. As much as he claims to be looking for love, perhaps he is merely looking for something to fill the holes in his life. He was, while his life was alive, far from saintly. And this merest hint at his unfaithful nature sets us up to distrust much of what comes from his own thoughts and actions. Allowing us to see not only how he dupes himself but those around him.

Murakami’s characters seem to be experts in self deception. And it is this that leads to their downfall. In the case of Aoyama, his sins and his pride seem small at first, but rapidly we come to question whether or not he truly deserves his fate when he meets the alluring but troubled Yamasaki Asami. Their entire courtship is based on deception, given that Aoyama has colluded with an old friend to set up “auditions” for aspiring actresses in order that Aoyama can remarry and fill those gaps in his life that he yearns to forget.

What follows could almost be a plot from some Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movie – the deception leads to romance and ultimately to the possibility of coming clean, which could make or break the relationship – but imbued with darker colours than Hollywood would ever allow. Aoyama’s own actions are morally dubious and his dream girl is quite literally too good to be true. Her seemingly meek acceptance of his declarations of love are offset by questions about her own life and background that up the tension on the part of the reader; what is the big secret? Is she truly who she appears to be?

Those already familiar with Miike’s movie will have their answers, but be warned that even if you expect the twist that’s coming, the climax is even more unsettling than in the movie. Less visceral, perhaps, but Murakami’s matter-of-fact voice serves to deeply unnerve the reader and bring a nightmarish quality to events that you will be unable to shake for weeks afterwards. This detached narration - and much credit to the translator for their work here - serves to enhance the moral questions raised in the text without offering many answers except those the reader brings with them.

If you haven’t discovered the psycho-noir of Murakami, do yourself a favour, drop everything, rush out and buy his books. But gentlemen be warned; after reading Audition, you’ll never look at a pretty girl in quite the same way again.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland.com, 24/12/08

THE BIG O by Declan Burke - guest review by Tony Black

2008-12-25T15:08:00.000-08:00

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008, ISBN 978-0151014088

Declan Burke has been on quite a trip with his hugely-acclaimed second novel, The Big O.

After starting life on the lists of tiny Irish publisher Hag's Head Press the Sligo-born author's follow-up to Eight-Ball Bogie has recently been given an American release.

No mean feat for a book that Burke gave up his hard-earned mortgage deposit to see published, and for which he had such modest hopes as to ''recoup the costs''.

It's a trip, though, that pales by comparison to The Big O's rollicking plot.

When stick-up artist, Karen, meets Ray -- a crim with a side-line in kidnap -- you can expect fireworks. Figure on worse when Ray is commissioned to snatch Karen's best mate, Madge. Throw in a dodgy plastic surgeon with an immediate need for cash ... and an insurance policy on Madge, and the the mix a heady one.

The Big O is one big-old crazy caper with an eerie hint of Elmore Leonard and a brash, bold, ball-bustin' tempo that puts the genre so close to The Edge that Larry Mullen might be nearby busting his sticks!

As a stylist, Burke is as kick-ass Irish as the great Ken Bruen and is already taking the back-roads to the same place in American hearts with this latest Houghton Mifflin Harcourt release.

The really big appeal of The Big O, however, is that there is simply nothing like it -- nothing close -- on the bookshelves today.

The Big O is a perfect confluence of craic and cracker-barrel craziness. A white-knuckle ride with pace and taste and a winding, weaving storyline that will have you moving through those pages faster than a hobo with a free meths ticket.

Burke has hit a bullseye with The Big O, and, blessed as he is with such a slick and impressive command of language, his achievement has more than earned all its big old praise.

Tony Black's PAYING FOR IT is out now. The nice folk at Crimespree said: "I'd put him up there with Rankin and Kernick and Billingham with just this first novel." Visit his site at: www.tonyblack.net

The Books of the Year

2008-12-23T16:07:00.000-08:00

Russel has been a little slow with reviews lately. However, for some of his top reads of the year, and also those of other respected critics, writers and bloggers, head to bookspotcentral and check out this article.

New full reviews will be forthcoming soon including a guest review from Tony Black of Declan Burke's THE BIG O.

INTERVIEW - Brett Battles, author of THE CLEANER and THE DECEIVED

2008-09-30T15:55:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, we reviewed one of the best new thrillers this reviewer had read in years. THE CLEANER was a breath of fresh air, a real action thriller that started moving from page one and never gave up. Since then, the marvellously monikered Brett Battles has released THE DECIEVED, the second pulse-pounding Jonathan Quinn thriller. In that period, over several months (due to personal issues) we interviewed Brett on THE CLEANER, his writing and his background. After a longer than necessary delay (Mr Battles, we owe you a beer next time we see you; maybe more than that), we present the lost interview:
CRIME SCENE SCOTLAND: Brett, welcome to the Crime Scene Scotland interview. I should start by saying that THE CLEANER is an excellent novel, reminds me of a very tight action movie with a definite Bondian influence. In fact your lead, Jonathan Quinn, is a kind of secret agent, working for a very covert operation. But he’s not a Bond character, he’s more like the guy who cleans up situations after the fact, ensuring nothing seems out of place. He’s a very ordered personality, very tight and withdrawn, and the situation he finds himself in challenges that, forces him to make potentially sloppy and dangerous choices that deviate from routine. So I guess I?m asking, what made you think of the clean up guy as protagonist? And what do you feel attracted you specifically to the character of Jonathan Quinn?

BRETT BATTLES: Thanks, Russel. Glad you enjoyed it.

Your understanding of Quinn is exactly right. He’s not Bond, but he does get pushed into some Bondian situations and must adapt. As you say, deviating from his routine.

I think what attracted me first to create a character whose role is more behind the scenes is that I’ve always been fascinated with the story behind the story. What I mean is, you hear about some catastrophe, let’s say a random killing. You’ll read about what happened, you’ll get the blow by blow, you might even get the story of what happened leading up to it. But what I want to know is what happens next. The idea of a cleaner, of Quinn, being my protagonist grew from that. He’s a what happens next character. As for Quinn, himself, he was a natural extension of that. I lived with the idea of a cleaner for a while, and eventually as he started to take shape in my mind, there was Quinn.

CSS: One of the things you do very well is make his world come to life - - that is, the Office - his employers - seems perfectly plausible, despite being such a shady organisation. And the way Quinn reacts - especially in the beginning, where he's impersonating an FBI agent - to other agencies feels just right. Was there much research that went into Quinn's world and profession? Did you find anything to model Quinn's own practices on in the real world? Or was it a matter of extremely good bluffing? I have this horrendous feeling you're about to shoot back a one word answer of, "bluff"...

BB: I mulled Quinn over in my mind for many months before actually starting the
story. And in that time I did do some passive research...in the sense of paying attention to news stories I heard that might have some relevance, watching documentaries on investigative techniques, that kind of thing. But the short answer...I created him how I wanted him to be, and how I imagined it would be like to do his job. Is that a bluff?

Its kind of a bluff... but one that you pull off very nicely. There's a very nice feel for Quinn as a professional who knows what he's doing, or at least who seems that way to the reader...

CSS: As you say, you spent a great deal of time making sure you got the right hook for the novel, the proper point of view in Quinn. I've known a lot of writers who "audition" characters before ever getting them down on the page. Others who simply hear the rhythms of a voice and let the character run riot on the page. How much do you know about these guys - not just Quinn, but also his protege, his enemies, his loves - beyond what there is on the printed page? Are you the kind of guy who keeps notes on characters or lets them run instinctually? And I'm guessing the kind of approach you use probably indicates the kind of plotter you are as well....

BB: I know them more and more everyday, but I'm kind of like that second example...I hear the rhythms and let the characters tell me who they are. That's not to say I didn't think a lot about Quinn before I began writing about him, but I learned so much more as I wrote THE CLEANER. Some of the other characters, Nate, Quinn's apprentice, and Orlando, Quinn's best friend and colleague, grew on the page as I wrote them. Most of my other characters are the same way. As for notes, I do keep a few as I'm going, knowing I will need them in future stories. And you're correct about the type of plotter I am. I have an idea of where I want to end and where I want to begin, what happens in between comes to me as I'm writing. Now that said, basically what happens is that my first draft is like a 400 page outline that I'll polish and tweak and sometimes heavily rewrite several times before handing it over to my publisher. It's a process that works well for me.

CSS: Seeing as the whole thing grew quite organically (and, yeah, I think its a good way to work - - keeps you as surprised as the reader in some ways which helps with the energy of a piece), were you approaching the original draft of THE CLEANER as the first in a series or was it ever intended as a standalone?

BB: You're absolutely right about the organic approach. It keeps me interested, almost like I'm a reader, too, and want to know what's going to happen next.

When I started THE CLEANER, I wasn't thinking series. I was just thinking, Write the damn book!" But when I was about half way through, a writer friend in a critique group I was in at the time said I had the makings of a series character with Quinn. Since then it seemed like a no brainer.

CSS: You say that you didn't think of THE CLEANER as part of a series initially... now there are two ways to go with series characters and that's to have a limited run (George Pelecanos with the Nick Stefanos books) or to keep them going indefinitely (JLB's Robichaux, or Lawrence Block's Matt Scudder). Do you have plans to keep Quinn around only for a little while or are you just seeing how it goes? And do you think that a series character should have a natural stopping point?

BB: That's an interesting question, and one I've been asking myself for a while now. I don't think I see Quinn as a ever-ongoing series. I think that for most series characters there is a natural stopping point, a time when the can no longer do the job perhaps. Not all characters, though. Depends on how the series is set up. Still, for me, I haven't made a final definite decision yet, and will probably play it out as it goes. In my mind now, I see an end, but I also see the possibility of spinning one of the other characters off at some point, or even bringing Quinn back in a supporting role in some future stand alone, for instance. I want to keep my options open and not stick myself with a decision I'll regret later.

CSS: THE CLEANER is definitely in the grand thriller tradition with its exotic (and not so) locales, which seem to be drawn from your own travel experiences - quite extensive if your own website's Q&A and bio is to be trusted... Were these travels part of a misspent youth or (if you can talk about such things!) work related? And what was it about Vietnam and Germany especially that drew you to include them so prominently in the novel?

BB: Ah...my travels. I've been a traveler since I was about 15 and went on a high school trip to London and Paris. That's a long way to go for a young kid from California. But the adventure of it all captured my imagination, and turned my life into one of exploration. Vietnam and Berlin are more recent trips. Berlin was for business. I actually worked there for about four months on a project, and really got to know the city. I love Berlin, it's interesting and exciting. Vietnam I visited in the late 90s on a trip to pick up my daughter from the orphanage she had spent her first year of life in. The nature of a Vietnamese adoption at the time meant I had to spend two weeks in Ho Chi Minh City as paperwork was processed. Again, I did a lot of exploring. Most of it with my new daughter in a carrier on my back looking over my shoulder

CSS: I'm very interested in what it is attracted you to the thriller genre. What is about these kinds of novels that makes you want to write - and I presume read - them?
BB: I think I've been attracted to thrillers since I was a kid. There was this great series of books called Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators. Three teenage boys out solving mysteries. I loved it. That led into books by Alistar Maclean, then Jack Higgins, BLACK SUNDAY by Thomas Harris, and then pretty much everything by Robert Ludlum. Later I grew a deep fondness for novels by Graham Greene.

I think what makes me want to also write these types of books is the excitement of the stories, the idea of people knocked out of their comfort zone and suddenly having to act just to stay alive, and the great characters that come out of all of that. I love to be sucked into a story. In fact that reminds me of a very important author I forgot, whose work completely sucks me in. Stephen King. The way he writes, the way his stories unfold just make me want to sit on my couch all day and read until I'm done.

CSS: One of other things I notice about the novel is it has a very filmic quality. I've already mentioned James Bond - definitely comes across in your use of locations - but also your use of action and the way you structure your story comes across as visual and structured in the way an action blockbuster might be. Do you find that films influence your writing in the same way as your reading? In fact, more generally, do you think that filmic storytelling in general is beginning to influence prose storytelling?

BB: I think film is a huge influence on me. Since I was a child I've been both a reader and a movie watcher. I even ended up majoring in Film Criticism (basically film history) because I loved the medium so much. My favorite class, by the way, was an entire semester on Alfred Hitchcock. And I don't think filmic storytelling is beginning to influence novel writing, I think it has been doing so for years. Take Stephen King for example...the way he has always written is very filmic. Michael Crichton, Robert Ludlum, Lee Child, they all write that way. Personally, not sure I know how to write in any other fashion

CSS: Before we go, Mr Battles, I have to admit I’m a little confused about your publishing history. I found a postcard for a novel called HUNG OUT TO DIE the other day - fell out an old issue of Crime Spree - which I understand was an early title for THE CLEANER? I know you had a fairly convoluted road to publication, and I always think its intriguing to hear how writers broke into the business....

BB: Convoluted indeed, more so than most, I think. HUNG OUT TO DIE wasn't even the first title. Before that I was using the working title DEVIL MAY CARE...it didn't mean anything, but it kind of stuck while I was writing the initial draft. Like most writers I sent out dozens of queries, and like the majority, I received mostly thanks but no thanks replies. (My favorite was an agent who sent back my query letter with a small ink stamp in the corner that said "NOT FOR US".) A few wanted to read a couple chapters, but ultimately it came to nothing. I was finally to the point that I was going to put the book on the shelf and start a new one.

Then I ran into a writing friend of mine, Nathan Walpow, who was being published by a small press called Ugly Town. He said he'd provide me an introduction. So I sent them a copy and wait, and waited, and waited. It was just about exactly a year later when one of the publishers at Ugly Town called me and said they were buying my novel. That was one of the best moments of my life. Over the next several months we changed the title to HUNG OUT TO DIE, and got the manuscript ready for publication. But things didn't work out exactly the way I thought they would. Due to a distributor who had gone bankrupt the previous year, Ugly Town ran into financial difficulties and were forced to suspend operation. It looked like my dream was going back to square one. But the Jim and Tom at Ugly Town did a very cool thing. They sent my manuscript to a friend of theirs who was an editor at Bantam Dell. She loved, bought it from them, and ended up giving me a 3 book deal. It worked out like a dream. I couldn't be happier. It was after Bantam picked me up that we changed the name to THE CLEANER.

And for that, Mr Battles we are all grateful. And even more grateful that you took time out of your schedule to talk to us, even if the final product took a while to get online. If you haven’t discovered the sheer pleasure of Battles’ writing, Crime Scene Scotland prescribes THE CLEANER and THE DECIEVED immediately. Battles is a name you'll be talking about for a long time to come.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland, 30/09/08

SENSELESS by Stona Fitch

2008-09-30T15:53:00.001-07:00

Two Ravens Press, £8.99, ISBN 978-1906120313

There is a theory that the best of novels engage in an ongoing dialogue with their readers. Not something one would immediately assume to equate with any kind of genre fiction, but time and again I have defended the genre by saying that – at its very best – crime and thriller fiction can engage with the world in ways that other forms can never hope to do.

And books like Senseless – described on the author’s website as a literary thriller – only prove the point.

Elliot Gast is an economost. Just one of many professionals who help keep the world of commerce running. He is nobody important. And yet one day he becomes the focus of the world when he is kidnapped off the streets in Belgium by an extremist group. The group hold Gast in captivity. The captivity itself is nothing on the surface. He is fed, watered and made comfortable.

And then they start to deprive him of his senses.

One by one.

It’s a compelling and chilling premise, one which instantly grabs the reader. Of course for many the premise poses the question of how are his senses removed? And it’s a question with a chilling answer. But not simply in the visceral matter of the torture. Senseless also engages and challenges the reader with a second twist: the entire captivity is broadcast live on the internet.

As Gast is tortured – for crimes he cannot account for – people all over the world are watching the feed as the extremists – can we call them terrorists given their reluctance to spell out their grievances? – proceed to mutilate and deprive their victim. He is encouraged to play along, to give the audience their scream.

And slowly, we realise, that the audience is not simply the faceless millions on the fictional internet described in Stona’s book… but ourselves. In one particular passage, Gast talks of seeing a news report in a bar about two men who survive a gruesome accident. While he momentarily feels empathy, he then goes about his life as though nothing had happened. During his incarceration, he realises what a monster this made him. As we, the readers, realise that after reading of Gast’s tortures, we too will return to our lives. After all he has lost, we have lost nothing.

Except maybe some part of our soul.

The book, however, refuses to act as pure condemnation. Fitch is a more subtle writer than that. Any discomfort we feel is brought on purely by realisation of our own complicity; he does not explicitly scold the audience.

And are we to truly believe that the author wrote the novel before the reality TV boom? While in the early 2000’s there were reality shows, they were yet to reach the dizzying heights they have now. And somehow, this makes Senseless even more unsettling and plausible than it may have seemed during its initial release days after the events of 9/11.

Shades of grey play throughout the narrative. There is uncertainty and fuzziness in certain motivations. The “terrorists” who take Gast of the streets remain shrouded in mystery. We do not know for certain what they want. Their goals are unclear even if their methods are frighteningly obvious. Are they delighting in terror for terror’s sake? Are they making some political statement that hovers tantalisingly close to our – and Gast’s – realisation?

Senseless is a disturbing and disturbed book on many levels. Its deceptively simple surface narrative touches on deeper and more complex themes, allowing it to be read on many levels. The very ambiguity of motivation and psychology leaves you searching the narrative for clues as to some reason why, engaging with the text on a level most thrillers seem to forget. This is one hell of a novel; smart, dark and unnerving.

And for the more viscerally oriented among you; you’ll never look at a cheese grater in the same way again.

Russel McLean for CrimeSceneScotland, 30/09/08

Guest Review by Tony Black- SANCTUARY by Ken Bruen

2008-09-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

Transworld, June 2008, £17.99, ISBN978-1848270275,

SANCTUARY is the seventh, and possibly final, installment in the Galway-based Jack Taylor series by Ken Bruen...if this is the end, and God forbid that's true, then Jack's going out on a high.

The booze-soaked sleuth has been battered and bruised in just about Biblical proportions from book one (The Guards) and this latest outing offers no, er, sanctuary for him.

Jack is up to his neck in bad shit from just about page one, when he receives an anonymous list of 'victims' including two guards, one judge, and a nun, signed only by the mysterious, Benedictus.

Followers of the groundbreaking series will know Jack's a man who's never been overly keen on the 'finding business'; in fact, if he's interesting in finding anything, it's an escape from his own misery. He seems close to doing just that at the outset of SANCTUARY -- he even has his tickets for New York in hand -- but then the case dramatically draws him in.

And what a bitch it turns out to be.

To the list of victims is added...a child.

Bruen is a master of the slow burn, adding fuel to the mounting fire of Jack's rage, until finally, the reader has scorched fingertips and the threat of spontaneous human combustion seems a real possibility.

Unputdownable is an overused catch-all these days but SANCTUARY demands the description. The relentless incident, the mounting doom and the unshakable knowledge that here is a tale told by a master storyteller -- at the peak of his form -- makes for one b'Jesus of=2 0a read.

The beauty of the prose can only be described as that of a genius. Bruen applies a finesse to his slickly-crafted sentences that's unmatched. It's a Salinger-esque trip told with the kind of insight you'd expect from an author with his own unique, cultural X-ray vision. And, in SANCTUARY, the new Ireland, in all its complexities, is never far from his field of view.

Those of you who have stayed the course throughout the bestselling Jack Taylor series are duly rewarded with the return of a host of recognisable characters -- savoury and otherwise -- that Jack has drawn around him. Jeff and Cathi. Ridge. The odious Father Malachy. And none are mere cameos. They all earn their right to be there, contributing the kind body-blows you'd expect from Bruen. But be warned, the revelation about Serna May is a particularly lethal hurley smack to the nut.

If SANCTUARY spells the end for Jack, he has earned his rest. But for those who don't want to believe it's so, Bruen leaves a tantalising prospect in the final few lines...which I won't reveal here. All I will say is, let's pray Jack's back...and soon.

Tony Black's PAYING FOR IT is out now. The nice folk at Crimespree said: "I’d put him up there with Rankin and Kernick and Billingham with just this first novel." Visit his site at: www.tonyblack.net

THE EVIL THAT MEN DO by Dave White

2008-09-14T13:49:00.000-07:00

Three Rivers Press, 2008, 978-0307382795, $13.95

Jackson Donne is back. The Jersey PI, last seen in Dave White’s debut novel, When One Man Dies, is drawn into a decades old case that implicates his own family in the complex and rewarding New Jersey thriller, The Evil that Men Do.

The first thing you notice upon starting this second Jackson Donne novel is that White has switched narrative styles since his first novel. The first person narration is gone, replaced entirely by a limited third that switches viewpoints between key cast members. Clearly a wise choice: White’s voice seems steadier here, less rough around the edges. The switch seems to imbue the author with a kind of confidence that ups his game, gives the novel a slightly tougher, more hard-edged feel than before. One of our problems with When One Man Dies was the occasionally awkward switch between narrative perspectives – something very few authors can achieve naturally – and this time round, the consistency of voice really creates a more cohesive and convincing whole.

Perhaps ironically, it is the distancing of the third person narrative helps Jackson seem more real. White’s style is near cinematic, so the distancing that comes with a third person narrative works in the author’s favour, allowing us a wider and more panoramic perspective.

Whether it’s down to this new voice, or the change of narrative, White appears to have more control over the longer narrative here. The plot is tight, the beats playing out powerfully and with a conviction that rarely fails. More than that, the personal feel of this story is more powerful than before, with Donne’s estranged family adding an unexpected poignancy to this thrilling tale of long kept secrets exploding into violence after decades of silence. His sister is a sympathetic contrast to Donne, while his mother – slowly deteriorating from Alzheimer’s disease and focussed only on the most terrible moments from her past – is convincing and heartbreaking.

We’re suckers at Crime Scene Scotland for the kind of crime stories that reach back into the past. Suckers too for the truly personal crime stories, the kind that have an immediately emotional affect upon the protagonists. Here, the Donne family are clearly connected to events that took place decades before Jackson’s birth, and White drip-feeds us that story between the pay-off that intrudes on Jackson’s life in a violent and bloody manner.

The book is designed to ramp up the tension and fast. Without his PI license – revoked following the events of When One Man Dies – Jackson Donne is just some guy drinking his life away, working at a bar, surviving but not really living. So when he becomes involved in the deadly game of cat and mouse that involves not just him, but his estranged family, the pressure is piled on. Without a license – he’s like early Matt Scudder, not really a PI but doing “favours for friends” – he cannot call on the same resources he once had. Suddenly Jackson is just some guy… and he’s just some guy caught up in a hellish situation.

The novel twists and turns beautifully. White has not only become comfortable with the novel length work, but also with himself: there is a conviction here that sells the action. The writing is cleaner and more crisp than in When One Man Dies. And Jackson feels more believable as a person than he did in the debut. Although he’d gone through a great deal before and during When One Man Dies, here we really see a man whose world has been put through the ringer, who is almost ready just to give up and crawl into the nearest beer bottle. And more, we see a man whose very soul won’t allow him to do that. The added family portrait may have something to do with that, and it’s clear that White’s focus has shifted more definitely towards the personal. There is a level of emotional realism to the character that helps move White’s writing up a level from very good indeed to, quite simply, great.

The Evil that Men Do achieves everything a second novel needs to do: it expands not merely on the fictional world and the emotional life of the series protagonist, but also on the author’s skill and focus. White is shaping up to be a novelist worthy of a committed following, and at Crime Scene Scotland, we’re looking forward to seeing what Jackson does next.

Russel D McLean for CrimeSceneScotland, 14/09/08

Found on the internet 30/07/08

2008-07-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

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

A Double Hit of Moe Prager

2008-07-30T06:03:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-30T05:59:00.001-07:00

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

2008-06-05T10:10:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-29T14:56:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-29T06:33:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-29T06:16:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-29T05:53:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-29T02:03:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-05T15:48:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-05T15:03:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-06T00:51:00.000-08:00

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

2008-03-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-17T11:57:00.000-08:00

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

THE BLONDE By Duane Swierczynski (featuring the original novella, REDHEAD)

2007-12-10T16:32:00.000-08:00

St Martin's Press, ISBN 978-0312374594, $13.95

Who is Duane Swierczynski? In a relatively short space of time he’s hopped from subgenre to subgenre, barely breaking a sweat. His debut, Secret Dead Men blurred several genre lines. His second novel, The Wheelman had a pace and style that recalled Richard Stark at his finest.

And, now, with The Blonde, Swierczynski changes tack again, giving us a techno-thriller with the bite and pacing of an honest-to-God action movie. It has the thrill and speed of Wheel Man with the genre-bending aspects of Secret Dead Men.

And it doesn’t waste time with pre-amble.

The opening scene of The Blonde sets the tone perfectly, with our hero being told by the attractive lady opposite that his drink has been poisoned. That if he wants the cure, he needs to do what his new companion says.

Of course he doesn’t believe her.

But soon enough he finds she wasn’t lying. And the poison isn’t the worst thing about his new friend…

Without giving too much away, there’s a near SF aspect to The Blonde that, upon reflection, seems almost ridiculous, but which is handled so skilfully you simply accept it as part of the world that Swierczynski creates. A lot of this is down to the pacing of the novel. The Blonde starts in high gear and just keeps going. The technobabble required to set up the MacgGuffin of the story is brief, convincingly straightforward and treated with respect. A lot of writers would spend time apologising or over-explaining the more apparently insane aspects of the story, but Swierczynski lays them out, says, just accept it.

And we do. Even the unlikely use of the word, “fook” that only Ken Bruen seems to ever be able to employ in prose without seeming foolish. In fact, if there are any niggles I had reading The Blonde, it was probably the Irish connection that seems a little superfluous, but doesn’t dampen the pace and mood.

There’s a joy to The Blonde that spills straight off the page. The reason we go so willingly with Swierczynski in his novels is because he’s having a ball with his stories, and this transfers directly to the reader. The best thriller writers don’t need complex plots or end-of-the-world stakes (even if The Blonde does have some extremely high stakes involved) to pull in the reader. They need pacing. Energy. They need the kind of crackling energy that can’t be faked.

The Blonde is a damned entertaining novel, reads at a hell of a speed and refuses to take itself too seriously, delighting in the kind of gloriously over the top action that leaves the reader grinning like a lunatic. And among all that, there’s an unexpected tenderness to some of the characters and their relationships that adds an extra dimension to this fast-paced thriller. Kowalski – a hitman with a past, and a served head in a gym-bag – is noteable for surprising the reader with extra dimensions and wrinkles to his character that a writer more concerned with theatrics may have ignored.

But what makes this paperback edition special is the addition of an original short story, Redhead, which will only make sense (as the author urges in his introduction to the new story) if you’ve read The Blonde.

Redhead picks up threads left hanging in the original novel and runs with them, creating its own kind of frenzied energy and serving as a satisfying and often witty coda to the action in the original novel. To be honest, it’s easy to move onto this final story with skipping a beat. Insert your own fade out and fade in, and you have an extended epilogue that adds something to the original story, but takes nothing away.

You don’t have to read Readhead to get full satisfaction from The Blonde, but it’s a helluva story and adds a more satisfying kick to the package in the paperback edition, along with the kind of joy that’s more often associated with DVD extras to enhance film.

So my advice to you is that you spend time with the kickass Blonde and her righteous Redhead sister. These two girls, they’re gonna slay you…

Russel McLean for crimescenescotland, 11/12/07

Lady's Night

2007-11-12T13:12:00.000-08:00

Featuring

SECOND SHOT By Zoe Sharp
Allison & Busby, £10.99, ISBN 978-0749080167

HELL OF A WOMAN Edited by Megan Abbot
Busted Flush Press, $18, ISBN 978-0976715733

DEADLY BELOVED By Max Allan Collins
Hard Case Crime, $6.99, ISBN 978-0843957785

Charlie Fox, the protagonist of Zoe Sharp’s popular series, is what a Scottish mother might call a “tough cookie”. But even this kick-ass heroine’s mortality may be in doubt as Sharp’s latest novel opens, finding Charlie shot and bleeding out in the bleak wilderness.

It’s a dramatic start for a series, and makes an immediate impact, even for a reader who’s never read this particular series before.

Like Lee Child, Barry Eisler and Brett Battles, Sharp is shooting for fast-paced heroics in her books. Her protagonist is tough and capable, but in contrast to Reacher or Rains, she seems believably vulnerable. Perhaps because her profession is more accessible than those of her male counterparts. Charlie Fox is a working bodyguard, and this status adds a touch of realism to her character that helps cement her world. She has to balance a real life with her more outlandish exploits, unlike the other characters whose status is often closer to archetypal than fully rounded individual.

The contrast Sharp draws between keeping Charlie professional and maintaining her humanity is evident in the tortured relationship she has with her boss. It is a small cliché, the romantic relationship with the boss, but is used here to illuminate Fox’s character and add some much needed tension to her professional outlook. Toeing the line between caring for someone and keeping them in line is tough, and Sharp piles the pressure perfectly, especially in one confrontational scene where Charlie is having doubts about accepting her latest assignment.

That’s not to say that Charlie is a hand-wringing heroine by any means. Unlike the more “chick lit” protagonists of certain current crime series, she is believably female without resorting to typically “girly” clichés. Her bloody-mindedness and dedication to her own professionalism are intense enough to both intrigue and unnerve the reader. Push this girl the wrong way, and you could end up in hospital or worse.

But a character like Charlie needs a plot to use her full potential. And Sharp provides a nicely twisting narrative that manages to use both the personal – there’s a great “family” theme running through the novel, especially the relationship between fathers and daughters – and the visceral to excellent effect.

Second Shot is, simply, a brilliantly executed (if you’ll pardon the pun) action thriller. More than that, its great to see a female protagonist who can kick ass equal to – if maybe better than – her male counterparts.

Charlie Fox, of course, also makes an brief (blink and you’ll miss her in the excellent Served Cold) appearance in Megan Abbot’s brilliant anthology, A Hell of a Woman (Busted Flush Press). This tightly themed collection of stories sets out to prove that female characters are more than the stereotypes they often get lumbered with in crime fiction.

While Val McDermid’s introduction focuses primarily on Chandler’s misconceptions of female characters and forgets to add that even today certain characters cheapen their characters – even those who serve as protagonists – to one-note chick-lit archetypes (equally as dull as the scheming femme-fatale) she sets the tone of the anthology nicely. These stories serve to show many facets of the female protagonist in crime fiction. From the ass kicking Charlie, to the less obviously proactive lead of Sara Gran’s brilliant The Token Booth Clerk, the anthology presents the reader with a variety of female characters who serve as the driving force behind the fiction.

Even those stories narrated from the male point of view (Ken Bruen’s Nora B springs instantly to mind) show the effect of women on those around them, and make even absent characters seem strong and… real.

The problem with many anthologies is that certain stories feel like they’re coasting. Usually, these stories come from the biggest names in the anthology. But here, everyone’s on form from the names you know down to the names you don’t. They’re all on board and running with the idea of femininity as a concept, an actuality, a myth… something to embrace and something to be terrified of. In fact, what makes this anthology stand out is the fact that the crime elements of the stories are incidental to the theme. This is a showcase of what crime fiction can do when it becomes about more than “solving mysteries” or “restoring order”. More often than not these stories are more about social commentary (Libby Fischer Hellman’s High Yellow) or psychology (Charlie Huston’ s Interrogation B) or what it means to be a woman in a desperate world (Lisa Resper France’s School Girl) than they are merely about “the crime”. But they use the trappings of crime fiction to push forward strong stories that support the basic themes.

Abott herself is a name I’ve been hearing about for a long time. On the strength of her assembling this anthology, it looks like I’m going to finally have to cave and pick up one of her own books. And based on the strength of stories here, I’ve got a whole new lot of authors I want to investigate further.

No question, this is one of the strongest anthologies I’ve read in a long time. In fact, the first I’ve digested in one sitting. But with the incredible array of writers and the sheer variety of stories involved, I can heartily recommend picking up A Hell of a Woman.

I’ve already mentioned the idea of men writing about female characters, which brings us neatly to Hard Case Crime’s newest release, Deadly Beloved, by Max Allan Collins. Collins, who seems to write at least ten books a year, is the kind of pulp writer you thought had disspeared decades earlier. He can turn his hand from original novels (the Nate Heller series) to tie-ins (he has written CSI tie-ins and Bones novels) to polishing off the final manuscripts by respected masters of pulp fiction (he was the one who guided Mickey Spillane’s final novel, Dead Street, to completion following the author’s death last year).

Deadly Beloved is based on Collins’ comic-book series, Ms Tree, which concerns itself with a female private eye. Once secretary to a respected investigator, she takes the business on when he is killed. She’s a tough, no nonsense kind of lady, who isn’t afraid to flaunt a gun or her own sexuality.

Collins himself admits in the afterword that Ms Tree is based very firmly in the old four colour comics tradition. Like Dick Tracy, but it’s the girl kicking ass. This is the kind of thing Collins does very well indeed.

Tree is missing the depth of emotion that runs through many of the shorts in Hell of A Woman and the natural empathy of Sharp’s Charlie Fox, but within the confines of her no-nonsense, high octane world she becomes compelling. Like the Tracy strips that were a direct influence on the novel, things seem a little tidy and perhaps even unbelievable, but there’s an energy to Collins’s writing and a love for the character and world he has created that shines through.

As with the Nate Heller series, and Collins recent polishing of one of Mickey Spillane’s final books, he seems extremely comfortable – as a writer – in a truly pulp world. For all the modernity of its attitude towards a female protagonist, Deadly Beloved remains cheerfully old fashioned in its ass-kicking approach to crime solving, its choice of antagonist and even in the way the story itself is structured. Take out the modern aspects of Tree’s investigations, and we could be back in the good old days of pulp. Collins puts forward the idea in his afterward that Ms Tree came out of the idea of spitballing around the concept that Mike Hammer’s devoted secretary might have taken on the agency following his death.

You think it’s a coincidence that her late, lamented shamus husband was called Michael?

So, yeah, Deadly Beloved is unashamed, ass-kicking, old fashioned fun. And as for Ms Tree herself, well, she’s something of a fantasy in many ways. But that doesn’t change the fact she’s one hell of a dame in her own right…

Russel D McLean for Crime Scene Scotland, 12 November 2007

Buy SECOND SHOT (Charlie Fox Series) from Amazon.co.uk
Buy Second Shot: A Charlie Fox Thriller (Charlie Fox Mysteries) from Amazon.com

Buy A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir from amazon.co.uk
Buy A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir from amazon.com

Buy Deadly Beloved (Hard Case Crime) from amazon.co.uk
Buy Deadly Beloved (Hard Case Crime) from amazon.com

OLD SCHOOLS OF HARD KNOCKS

2007-09-15T14:15:00.000-07:00

THE BLUE CHEER By Ed Lynskey

Point Blank Press, 2007, ISBN: 9780809556670, $12.95

DEAD STREET By Mickey Spillane

Hard Case Crime, Oct. 30 2007, ISBN 0843957778

And

DAMN NEAR DEAD Edited by Duane Swierczynski

Busted Flush Press, 2006, ISBN 0976715759, $18

Lynskey’s second novel featuring PI Frank Johnson starts with a quite literal bang as the investigators quiet country home is attacked by a stinger rocket. Frank may be looking for the good life, but it seems that the bad just follows him around.

And from bad it gets worse. The rocket is only the start of Frank’s troubles, and soon he finds himself caught up in the affairs of a local hate group known as the Blue Cheer. A group that may have a stronger local support than Frank could begin to guess at.

There’s something endearing about Johnson that we’ve mentioned before; how he seems a kind of strange anachronism at times: an old school PI – replete with a hardass dry-wit and a distinctly Chandleresque dialect – who’s been thrown into the modern world quite unwillingly. Although Lynskey has calmed this down somewhat since The Dirt Brown Derby, that old school charm hangs around the narrative, keeping Frank a compelling character and adding a kind of odd interest that .

Its an approach that works, and decidedly more than it did in Lynskey’s first novel. Part of this seems to be the more active role that Johnson has in this tale. He’s not just a PI for hire, he’s taking his case personally. He’s more willing to push himself for not only the common good, but that of the people around him. His relationships with the townfolks and his closest neighbour (whose past is more than a little murky) make Johnson more than just another hardboiled PI, adding a more human dimension beyond the tough clichés. Lynskey is bringing the old-school hardboiled books bang up to date in an exciting, compelling fashion, and more than that is continuing to evolve as a writer with each new book.

So its interesting to move from a writer homaging pulp influences at the start of his career, comparatively speaking, to a writer whose final crime novel (if not necessarily his last novel overall) has recently been released by Hard Case Crime, a brand whose very existence is predicated on the appeal of the old pulp novel lines.

If you want the real deal old-school hardboiled, you don’t need to look much further than Mickey Spillane. Love his works or loathe them – and he always provokes a reaction, even now – Spillane followed his own particular code when it came to walking those mean streets.

His characters were often tougher than Chandler’s or even Hammet’s, unapologetically violent and hard-headed in their attitudes. They were imperfect people, populating streets where the shadows often provided the most light. In his final crime novel, Dead Street, Spillane takes his mean streets and makes them even darker with the spin of old age. In this novel, the protagonists are battling their age as much as each other.

It shows most in the way the tale is spun. As with Lynskey’s novel, Spillane works in a recognisable modern setting but uses an old fashioned hard boiled voice to breathe life into it. There is talk of terrorism, nuclear weaponry and even the occasional cellphone, but the characters seem ill at ease to use these terms. Put it down to their age. These are the old ass kicking heroes who refused to lay down and die. Who are still walking the streets, even if the streets have changed over the years, become alien to the men who knew them so well. Unlike Lynskey, this is not an homage to the golden age of pulp, so much as a product. Spillane knows his voice, knows his audience, and his voice rings through with a period authenticity that both alienates his character from the modern world and cements his place in it.

It’s a fantastically hardboiled premise that Spillane employs – an old cop finds out the woman he loved is still alive. A woman he thought dead for decades, who once seemed his only reason to find joy in the world. And for all the life that her re-appearance brings back to him (even if she no longer remembers him, even if she’s become someone else) it draws him closer to the end of his own as well. Spillane doesn’t write about anything so simple as love here. It becomes about rebirth, about rediscovery. This old washed out cop rediscovers his younger self. As the book goes on, the prose becomes more obliquely pulp.

Your enjoyment probably varies depending on your opinion of Spillane and his particular approach. If you like his work, you’ll get a kick out of Dead Street. If you never got it, you won’t be converted. But it’s a read that does exactly what it sets out to do, and that’s Spillane’s signature. Its probably worth noting that the manuscript was prepared for release by Max Allan Collins, a productive crime writer who owes Spillane a massive debt of influence for his own series, and who manages to sensitively insert his work into the manuscript so that most people should have a hard time knowing where the editing work was done. Just the way it should be.

Ultimately, Spillane’s final novel is a twisting tale told with his typically snarling attitude. Like its character, it feels a little awkward in the modern world, but that only adds to its charm, making it a nod back to those days and a tip of the hat forward to a new way of writing the old pulps.

It’s the idea of an old man in a new world that formed the central theme of Duane Swierczynski’s anthology, Damn Near Dead, a book I’ve been dipping in and out of (the way you do with the best anthologies) since its release last year, but now seems the ideal time to mention it, tying in as it does with the old and new guard theme of this multi-book review.

“Geezer Noir” is the term coined, and it seems that Swierczynski managed to pip Spillane to the post in this regard. The novel deals with hardboiled characters – thugs, killers and criminals – in their silver years. In worlds that have changed and become alien to them. Like the protagonist of Dead Street, they still have this need to behave like they’re young, to maintain their own power and anger.

There is a breadth of style and content here, and its fascinating to observe the ways in which writers of various ages (the youngest author here, Dave White, is 28 while the oldest, John Harvey is… well, he has a few years on Dave White at least) approach the subject of growing old in a hardboiled world. There’s regret, recrimination and, in Simon Kernick’s snappy and clever Funeral for a Friend even a kind of rebirth. There’s deathly serious approaches to the subject, and there’s the more… unusual stylistic flourishes (Stuart MacBride gets to have some fun with Daphne McAndrews and the Smackhead Junkies, even daring to fly in the hardboiled face of the anthology and throw in a cookie recipe), which serve to highlight the many facets of the talent Swierczynski has assembled. From big names like Mark Billingham and John Harvey to up and comers like Dave White, Sarah Weinman and Ray Banks. Some of the authors have only published short stories. Some have huge backlists. Others are only now debuting. But all of them bring a unique voice to the twilight world of geezer noir making Damn Near Dead a fine introduction to a crew of writers who represent the old and new guard and whose insights into old age present it as anything but the expected dotage society might expect.

Russel McLean for Crime Scene Scotland, 15/09/07

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Buy Dead Street (Hard Case Crime) from Amazon.co.uk
Buy Dead Street (Hard Case Crime)
Buy Damn Near Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir from Amazon.com
Buy Damn Near Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir from Amazon.co.uk

WHO IS CONRAD HIRST? by Kevin Wignall

2007-09-15T13:58:00.000-07:00

Simon and Schuster US, November 2007, ISBN 9781416540724

It’s a pity Wignall isn’t better known in the UK. His third novel, Among the Dead was an economical, highly effective psychological thriller concerning three friends who accidentally kill a girl at university and end up paying the price years later. While we haven’t his read his other novels at Crime Scene Scotland, his latest, Who Is Conrad Hirst?, confirms that this wasn’t just a fluke.

Comparisons to the Bourne series are inevitable in this tale of a hitman who discovers that nothing he knows is necessarily true, but Hirst is less about oblique, barnstorming action, concerning itself more with the psychological journey that shakes its protagonist’s world. The espionage backdrop is convincingly rendered, as Hirst discovers that his crime-lord masters may be more influential than he ever realised. The massive info-dump that often plagues such novels (including – and especially in – the Bourne books) is neatly sidestepped in a story that gives us all the information we need without delving into dull and complex expository sequences. We, as an audience, are treated as being intelligent enough to figure just how much of Hirst’s story is true and how much he really isn’t telling us.

Wignall’s prose is clear and crisp, the third person narrative keeping us distant enough from the character to keep his mystery, but close enough to empathise with him as he sets out to leave the life that has defined him for so long. All it takes is one specific hit to make Hirst desperate to leave this life that he fell into following a period in a war zone. And the reason that hit affects him so much always seems just within reach, but only becomes clear as Wignall effectively blindsides the reader with an affectingly human moment. Enough to bring a small shudder of emotion even to this jaded reviewer. To say much more would be to ruin a brilliantly designed and executed moment, but when it comes, you can’t miss it.

It’s this human dimension that makes the novel work so well. Like all the best hitmen, Hirst is distanced from his targets, but there’s a gradual thawing of his character that makes him seem utterly human. He never becomes mushy, but the slow revelation of the humanity that exists side by side with his professional existence creates an impressively empathetic protagonist.

Unusually for an espionage piece, there is little in the way of explosive set pieces, but the novel uses its backdrop as a way of further exploring its character and psychological dynamics, which become more intriguing than a variety of explosions and deaths. Thankfully, though, when Hirst is “on the job” he is utterly believable. There is a cold clinical aspect to the way he goes about his work. The only way out of the life of a professional killer, after all, is for Hirst to kill those people who have direct contact with him. These set pieces – including the one that opens the novel – are compelling and convincing: up-close, personal and chilling. Exactly as they should be.

Who Killed Conrad Hirst? is a sharp, compelling novel about identity, guilt and loss. It deals with its themes in an intensely human fashion, with a central mystery that neatly encapsulates its protagonist. Hirst is as much of a mystery to himself as he is to us, and the slow unravelling of the web of lies that surrounds him – perpetuated, it seems, not only by his employers, but by himself – provide a personal kind of intrigue that goes right for the heart. It’s a perfect antidote to the world-at-stake, Bondian image of the spy/mercenary that pop culture often uses for shorthand.

An unexpected and excellent novel from an author who deserves more recognition not just within the genre, but outside of it as well.

Russel McLean for Crime Scene Scotland 15/09/07

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KING OF SWORDS by Nick Stone

2007-07-25T09:31:00.000-07:00

Penguin, 02 August 2007, £12.99, ISBN: 9780718149222

Taking an unusual tack for a second novel, Nick Stone provides a prequel to his bestselling, award-winning debut novel, Mr Clarinet. This time around, we’re focussing on protagonist Max Mingus’s days in Chicago, detailing the first time he crossed the path of the mysterious Soloman Boukman.

There is a great risk involved with writing prequels – the most obvious being that any tension is sucked out of the room by the fact we know, in terms of the major players, who will live and die. We know here that Max must survive and even more importantly that Boukman will at some point escape to torture Max another day.

Luckily, Stone finds a way round that by writing a narrative that expands greatly on what we know about Mingus, expanding and humanising (but not softening) the character, answering several of the questions left hanging at the end of Mr Clarinet. In terms of tension, several other characters are introduced whose fates are less certain. The change to multiple character perspectives also gives way to a different kind of story and the interest lies in seeing how the threads finally converge.

As with his previous novel, Stone plays around with ideas of magic – particularly voodoo – and the hold it has over people. With Mr Clarinet, it was easy to play up the Voodoo history with the novel taking place in Haiti, which seems curiously a curiously timeless place, no matter when the novel is set. Placing King of Swords in 1980’s Miami poses a different slant on the voodoo element of the story. Had the story been set in New Orleans, it may have been easy to once more play up the mystical voodoo elements, but 1980’s Miami sets up its own curious problems.
To start with, the place and time are synonymous with Al Pacino and Martin Scorcese’s particular approach to Scarface. Stone clearly has this in mind in describing the street life in King of Swords. His lowlife scum could easily have fitted into that world or indeed the books of Elmore Leonard.

This backdrop would seem to leave little room for Voodoo to be rendered in a believable fashion, and yet somehow Stone pulls it off. Primarily because he allows the reader to question the nature of the magic and ritual. The policework and investigation is grounded. The conflict is psychologically real, and the magic of Solomon Boukman is treated carefully – never allowed to take centre stage where it could be proved or disproved, but rather lurking in the shadows where we are never sure whether to believe in it or not. One book that came to mind more than once was Walter Mosely’s Gone Fishin’ where a young Easy Rawlins encounters a kind of voodoo magic during his trip down south with Mouse.

With its solid setting, its believable edge and a character who feels real, King of Swords is an excellent book. As a prequel, it works perfectly, and somehow maintains its tension despite the inherent problems of writing a book set in a previously established character’s past. Stone is a confident writer, who already feels like he’s been around for years.

A healthy mixture of thriller and hardboiled crime novel, with a little hint of the supernatural thrown in to spice it up, King of Swords is not only the perfect follow up to Mr Clarinet but a damn fine crime thriller in its own right. If you haven’t read Stone before, I’d suggest you start right now.

Russel McLean for Crimescenescotland.com, 25 July 2007

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THE CONCRETE MAZE by Steven Torres

2007-07-24T17:24:00.000-07:00

Dorchester Books, July, 2007, $7.99, ISBN: 084395969X

Author, Steven Torres is perhaps better known for his Precinct Puerto Rico Mysteries, which combine local colour with a commentary and violence that belies his natural and understated prose. His latest novel, The Concrete Maze, not only ups the darkness inherent in Torres’s work, but shifts location to a more traditionally noir territory: the Bronx.

It’s a move that works well for Torres. His excellent, highly readable prose and ability to craft driven, intriguing characters transfer well to this darkly urban setting.

When Marc’s uncle, Tio Louis, discovers his thirteen year daughter missing and apparently in the company of an older man, it’s only the start of a series of dark events that will force both men to confront their personal morality. Overcome with rage, he sets out to recover his daughter and to hell with anyone who stands in his way. Marc, who’s a decent guy, finds himself being pulled along for the ride and pretty soon is not only plunged into the dark places of NYC, but along with Tio Louis is forced to confront the boundaries of his own personal morality.

Torres’s natural and conversational style set the reader up from page one. Placing us firmly on the side of our protagonist, Marc. He’s an amiable companion and it’s this likeable style that helps makes the punches, when they come, even harder on the reader. In fact, the story seems, at first, to amble along so naturally that when the twists come, they blindside the reader as much as the characters.

In fact, if the book has any problems the one that strikes this reviewer most is that, at times, Marc’s narration can seem almost too innocent for a character who has lived his life in the Bronx and must surely know something of the corruption that goes on beneath the world. I’m not talking simple knowledge here, but at times it feels as though Marc has been too much of an observer throughout his life and this strikes the occasional false note. Perhaps one can see the necessity for this, to set Marc up in contrast to his ex-serviceman uncle, whose rage erupts violently from the beginning of the novel. And certainly, one can see Marc harden over the course of the novel as he confronts his own morality, but the nice guy card seems a little overplayed at times. However, Torres’s writing and his urgent plot pull us through, and any such criticism is probably nitpicking on this reviewer’s behalf.

The story is built upon the idea of the sudden and disruptive intrusion of violence into the lives of our characters and the revelations of layers, not just in the psychological states of Marc and Tio Louis, but in the crisply realised Bronx backdrop that starts off familiar and degenerates into a dark, unsettling world of amorality that forces our characters to make difficult, emotionally driven choices. There are standard thriller elements here – corruption, conspiracy – but Torres ensures that the action remains personal to our characters. There are larger crimes, but they are not the focus so much as the personal injustice that drives our characters in their quest. There are two scenes towards the end of the novel – which cannot be discussed without giving too much away – that stood out for this reviewer. While both revolved around larger crimes, it was the personal aspects of each scene that ultimately became the most affecting.

Like the best hardboiled and noir stories, The Concrete Maze takes otherwise normal characters and thrusts them into situations that test their morality and assumptions to the limit. This is where we see the need for Marc’s apparent innocence in contrast to Tio Louis. To understand just how far a man may be pushed in an emotionally volatile situation.

The corruption of the innocent is a powerful motivator in many crime stories, but Torres only uses that as a jumping off point to explore what happens when the emotional resonance of the crime strikes deeply to the heart of his characters, and the final resolution is at once as surprising as it is satisfactory. But for all the resolutions involved, Torres makes us distinctly aware that things have changed for our characters; that their views have been shaken and their world has been changed by the events of this novel. For Torres, violence and death are not simply plot points, but are tools used to explore his characters, to push them to breaking point and possibly beyond.

There are no easy ethical answers on offer here, and Torres wisely refrains from moralising too deeply, even through his protagonist. What remains is a smoothly written, tightly plotted and, above all, personally affecting thriller. Torres, no matter the setting, is a highly skilled author, and The Concrete Maze is his gripping, intelligent and dark tour through the streets of New York that the tourists hope they never have to see.

Russel McLean for crimescenescotland.com, 25 July 2007

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Buy The Concrete Maze from amazon.com

Interview with Sean Chercover, author of BIG CITY, BAD BLOOD

2007-07-24T17:04:00.000-07:00

Sean Chercover is an ex-journalist, ex-PI, ex-film editor who’s finally settled into a far more stable profession: crime writing. His debut, Big City, Bad Blood (referred to as BC, BB for brevity’s sake), has garnered fantastic reviews across the board and proves that the PI genre, contrary to popular opinion, isn’t dead yet. It’s a hardboiled tale of corruption, detection, the movie industry and those cold, cold Chicago winds (although they ain’t got nothing on those cold, cold Tayside winds).

I first met Sean at the Chicago Bouchercon in 2005, where I said hello, shook his hand and puked on his shoes. Yeah, everything you hear about those ‘cons is bang on the money.

For whatever reason, he still talked to me, and thank Goodness for that because it means I got to know one of the best new writers in the business right before his big break.

Sean’s enthusiasm for the crime genre – and for good storytelling – is evident not only in his work but in conversation. But we don’t care about that – we just love the idea that a Mexican waiter once told him out of the blue that he looked like Mel Gibson (anything for a cheap joke round here).

Doug told me, if he starts talking about international Jewish conspiracies, or calls anyone “Sugartits” I should walk out.

Which is hard to do over the internet.

RUSSEL McLEAN: Sean, welcome to the CSS interview.

SEAN CHERCOVER: Thanks for having me.

RM: We tried to get Mel Gibson, but for some reason he wouldn't let us anywhere near him, so we decided to get a look-a-like instead. And, of course, unlike Mel, you know what noir is all about (and you generally don't go on crazy religious rants).

SC: There was a time when I would've been flattered by the comparison, but I don't lie to myself as well as I used to. Anyone who makes me for a Mel Gibson look-a-like is blind in one eye and can't see out of the other. Mel and I do, however, share one thing in common. We both know that THE BUDDHISTS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THE WARS IN THE WORLD!! Damn Buddhist warmongers.

Please excuse that last outburst. It was the booze talking. Of course, I have nothing against the Buddhists.

RM: And they’ve got nothing against you… except the court order…

BIG CITY, BAD BLOOD – which, I tell you, is miles better than APOCOLYPTO - automatically appealed to me because, as anyone who reads the site regularly knows, I’m a big fan of PI fiction. One of the things I always look for is a level of realism. Ray Dudgeon – apart from having a tough guy name – strikes me as a believable PI: not exactly a “have-a-go” weekend hero, he's a real guy doing a real job

SC: I'm glad you like Ray's tough-guy name. He actually had quite a few names on the way to becoming Ray Dudgeon. I almost went with Cecil Girlypants, but it wasn't quite tough enough.

RM: Aside from getting the name right, it was obviously important to create this level of believability in Ray as an investigator…

SC: It was important to make Ray believable. Like you said, “a real guy doing a real job”. I didn't want to create him as a 'white knight' who always does right and wins every fight. I sometimes enjoy reading those sort of PI heros, but I'm usually more interested in reading (and writing) about the murky grey area where real life takes place.

In BIG CITY, BAD BLOOD, Ray is offered a bodyguard job - protecting a guy who thinks the Outfit want him dead. So Ray goes to his contact within the Outfit and says, basically, "Look, if you guys want this guy dead, I won't take the case." That's not a very 'white knight' thing to do, but it is very realistic. The way Ray looks at it, if the mob wants this guy dead, then he's dead, and nothing will be served by Ray getting dead along with him. He'll simply tell the guy to develop a case of amnesia and refuse to testify against the guy on trial.

RM: Even though you claim you didn't want him to do the right thing every time I think there's still a morality to Ray. Something at his heart that knows what the right thing is. He's not a bad or amoral man. But he is a man, with all the contradiction and complications that implies. Which is a great thing for a character. It’s, I suppose, the Chandlerian archetype given that extra degree of humanity and fallibility.

Sticking with the PI as reality theme, there's a great sequence where Ray talks about selling the image of the PI to his clients. I know that you were an investigator yourself for a while, and I'm guessing this sequence comes from experience? Is there a gulf between the fictional PI and the real deal? And are there any crime writers who come close to capturing the real experience of the work?

SC: When I began working as a P.I., I got some good advice from a Chicago P.I. named Ernie Rizzo. Ernie gave me the tip about selling the image to the client (you can read a little more here). He was very helpful to me when I was just starting out, and years later, he gave me a nice blurb for BC,BB. He died last year, just as we were starting to work together on his autobiography. Bummer.

Anyway, yes there is a huge gulf between the fictional P.I. and the real deal. And in many ways, there should be. These books are fiction, after all. Your first obligation is to the story, not to portraying reality. I think when we talk about wanting books to be realistic, we really mean that we want them to be plausible. And there are some writers who write about the work in a very plausible way. The first that springs to mind is Loren Estleman, with his Amos Walker series. The way Walker works a case is very believable and certainly captures the feeling of the job. Bill Pronzini's Nameless detective series also does that very well.

RM: I suppose I'll have to cop here to never having read Estleman. These interviews show up the gaps in my education, sometimes... but Nameless, bloody hell, I love Pronzini's work (and I think you can definitely see the influence of these classic 'tecs in BC,BB)

SC: Yeah, Pronzini is impressive. And since you've confessed, so will I… I'd actually never read a Nameless book until this year. People used to talk about the great Nameless Detective books and I always assumed they were talking about the books by Derek Raymond (one of my all-time favorites) who wrote a series about a London police detective who was nameless. A couple of years ago, I learned that they were talking about a different Nameless. And this year, I finally read one. And then another...and another...and another...great stuff. You should definitely read Estleman's Amos Walker. Different, of course, but also a very authentic vibe.

RM: I suppose that the gap between fiction and reality is that the best fiction is "hyper-real" or an idealised version of reality. Which means that your basic 'tec on the page has to have a far more exciting life than the real thing...

SC: More exciting, yes, and definitely less complicated. A few examples...

- In real life, you work mostly for lawyers. The woman who thinks her husband is cheating doesn't usually hire you; her divorce attorney hires you. You pin your business card on cork-boards in bars and laundromats and community centers, and yes, once in a while, the damsel in distress comes to you. But it's mostly lawyers, insurance companies, and so on. Less dramatic, but that's the way it is.

- A real PI rarely works one case at a time. Again, once in a while, someone will hire you to work one case exclusively, but that's pretty rare, except when a case takes you out of town, or you're on an executive protection or secure courier gig. Usually, you're juggling at least a few cases at a time, but that's too unwieldy for a novel.

- Time compression. Cases often stall. Sometimes you've got an open file for months, with very little activity. And even when a case doesn't stall, it usually unfolds over a longer period of time in reality than in fiction. Which leads me to...

- Boredom. Sure, in fiction we get a few scenes of the P.I. sitting in his car on a long surveillance, bored out of his mind. But it would be tedious to draw it out to reflect how it is in reality. I mean, you can just sit there, day after day after day, week after week, swallowing caffeine pills and eating beef jerky (and switching cars regularly - something else they don't often do in the books) and it can begin to feel like the movie Groundhog Day - except you don't get to learn how to play the piano or make ice sculptures. The books don't even come close to the tedium of a long surveillance where nothing happens. If they did, they’d put readers to sleep.

- Resolution. You do your job, you get paid, you move on. Your job is not to find the Ultimate Truth and bring all Bad Men to justice. Your job is to uncover sufficient facts for your client to achieve his or her objective. Once you do that, the job is over. And sometimes you can see that there's a lot more going on, but you're not being paid to pull those threads. You just have to let it go and move on. A few of the books hint at this, but they usually wrap things up in a neat little package, maybe leaving only a few, relatively unimportant threads dangling to make the point. Real life is WAY messier that that.

RM: Talking about reality (hey, it’s a famously patented McLean tenuous link!), one of the other things about BC,BB that got me was your obvious love of Chicago... You bring it to life in the novel… when I was reading, I got kinda nostalgic for a place I’d spent, what, all of three days in! What is it that draws you to the city? I mean, the Outfit connections aside, what made you fall in love with the city enough to use it as such an effective backdrop for the novel?

SC: I first moved to Chicago in January 1987. January. Chicago. F***ing cold, man. And I moved here from South Carolina, so the change was extreme. But it was love at first sight. Beautiful city, awesome architecture, incredibly rich history of crime and corruption, as well as art and science and commerce. Great live music scene, blues, jazz, reggae, you name it. And when it's not trying to freeze you to death, it's got amazing lakefront parks, neighborhoods, vibrant street life. Great baseball town. Incredible energy and maddening contradictions. I just immediately felt at home here. When I started writing BCBB, I'd been away from the city for a while, and I was missing it terribly. So the book is almost a love letter to Chicago.

RM: Of course the first time I ever heard the name “Chercover” was in Chicago... I seem to remember it was at that B'Con (or shortly after) where you made the deal for BC, BB. So Chicago is paying you back in spades for that love letter (gotta say I love the city - that was my first Bouchercon and I remember I wished I'd stayed beyond so I could see more of Chicago itself)...

SC: I signed my contract with HarperCollins just before the Chicago Bouchercon. We had a deal months earlier, but it takes some time to iron out details and get lawyers to approve everything. The process was amazing to me. My agent told me we had a deal, and my reaction was, "When do I see the contract?" because, coming from the television industry, I didn't believe anything that isn't on paper. And she said, "Welcome to the publishing world. We said we have a deal, we have a deal." And of course we did. So, in the end, New York is paying me for my love letter to Chicago. But you should come back to Chi-town some time and let me show you around.

RM: You know I’ll be back to take you up on that!

Talking of that Bouchercon, reminds me that I heard some very odd stories about how you actually got your agent in the first place... most people go around leaving polite queries in inboxes but as I understand it you took out an ad in the Toronto Bouchercon handbook... takes some balls and a twisted brain to come up with a plan like that, surely?

SC: Okay. . .I guess I should set the record straight on this, since I've heard the story told back to me and I've read it on blogs, and there seems to be some 'broken telephone' thing at work.

Here's what I did:

I'd just finished my manuscript and the Toronto B'con was coming up. Ray Dudgeon (my protag) is a disillusioned newspaper reporter turned private eye. So I had some reporters notebooks made, with custom covers designed by my wife - the title of the book at the top, the Chicago skyline, and "A new crime novel by Sean Chercover, a new author seeking representation" at the bottom. Then I got the list of registered B’con attendees, and read about the attending agents in the Writers Digest Guide to Literary Agents. I picked about 16 agents who seemed like a good fit, and wrote a cover letter - basically the same query letter I was going to send out by mail, but with an introductory paragraph explaining that the notebook was a bribe to try and get their attention and avoid the slush pile. Then I found out which hotels the agents were staying in, packaged my letters and notebooks, and had them delivered to the agents' hotel rooms. That was step one.

Step two: Never being one to shy away from overkill, I took an ad out in the B'con program book. The ad was extremely tongue-in-cheek, kind of a carnival barker over-the-top sales pitch. A "Step right up, you lucky agents" kind of thing, with about a thousand exclamation marks. It was supposed to make people smile, and send the message that I wasn't taking myself too seriously. What totally floored me was that some people didn't get the irony of the ad, and I got some very negative feedback from folks.

But not from agents. The agents got it, thank goodness. After the conference was over, I went home and started sending out query letters to agents, the old fashioned way. A week later, I started getting e-mails from a few of the agents who'd received notepads at the conference. Basically, "Hey thanks for the notepad, send me the first two chapters," sort of thing. So I started sending out partials, while getting rejection letters from the queries that went out by mail. And a few agents wrote who had not gotten notepads, but had seen the ad in the program book and thought it funny. So I sent partials to them, as well. But I did not actually get my agent from the ad - I don't think she even saw the ad. She was one of the agents who'd gotten a notepad.

Bouchercon was in October, and I officially had an agent by the first week of January. So my harebrained scheme worked. Yet I still get negative feedback from other writers who say that I "disrespected the process". Whatever. I intended no disrespect and the agents who asked for partials did not feel disrespected and I ended up with a great agent and a great publisher, so bite me.

RM: While I haven't met your agent, she's gotta be good to get you your publisher - you're in distinguished company... but its pretty clear that the writing is what got you into this position rather than any tricky sales pitches...

And that's a pretty awkward segue into talking about writing for a bit, specifically how you approach your work... Obviously you worked on BC,BB for a while and I'm kinda curious, because its led almost equally by action and character, whether you're a plot-it-out kinda guy or a "seat of the pants" scribbler?

SC: Going in, I need to know my ending, and what I call the 10 or 15 "tentpole" scenes (because, like tentpoles, they hold up the plot and without them, the story would collapse). But I don't need (or want) to know everything that's going to happen along the way. And as I go along, I'm open to changing the ending and any tentpole scenes. While writing BC,BB I did change the ending (although not dramatically), and I did change many of the tentpole scenes (dramatically). When that happens, I stop and restructure, making sure all the necessary tentpoles are in place before diving back in.

But the question is an interesting one, and it raises the relationship between plot and character. With a grand total of one book under my belt, I'm hardly in a position to pontificate, but for me, plot really is character in motion. I can't outline a novel in minute detail, because I don't fully know all the characters until I start writing them. And if the process of getting to know the characters doesn't change the plot, then it's probably not a plot with any depth to it. I'm generally not attracted to "High Concept" plots, either as a reader or a writer.

RM: The "trim bin" concept is pretty intriguing to me - I assume you may even come back to some of these ideas and notes on other stories if it seems appropriate...

SC: Absolutely. The Trim Bin also makes it a little easier to "kill your darlings." Those beloved scenes, witty exchanges of dialogue and beautiful descriptive passages that have no business being in your novel are easier to cut, because they aren't really dead and gone, they're just 'resting' in the Trim Bin.

RM: This clearly comes from your background as a film editor... the job relating to a novelist in terms of the need to concisely and clearly convey a sequence of events (or story)... which makes me wonder if you perceive a difference between telling a story in film and in prose? Of course, knowing my luck you'll answer this one with a straight "no"! Although I think that telling a story in film can lead to a clearer narrative - with prose, that extra "internal" dimension is often what leads to sluggishness - something I believe you avoid in BC, BB.

SC: I think there are enormous differences between telling a story in film and in prose. Working in film and television teaches strict economy. You can't afford to waste words. You can't afford flabby dialogue, bad expository dialogue, or “on the nose” dialogue. You have to start every scene at the latest best moment, and end every scene at the earliest best moment.

Working as a picture cutter really drives these lessons home. Editors like to say that the edit is the final re-write of the script. It is in the cutting room that the script writer's last self-indulgent "darlings" are exposed and put mercifully to death. And the cutting room is the last chance to get the pacing right.

So I tend to write tight. Most new authors say that their agents and editors asked them to cut their manuscripts down to a manageable size. I had the opposite experience. My manuscript was 86,000 words when I got an agent. She said she understood that Ray was psychologically damaged and had an emotional wall, which was fine when he was relating to the other characters, but that I needed to let the reader into Ray's head a little more. Which was an excellent note. And then when we got a publishing deal, my editor at William Morrow wanted to see a little more of Ray's relationship with his girlfriend, and a little more of his backstory, so that added more words. I think the final book is just over 95,000 words. So my newbie experience was the opposite of most, and I attribute that to the economy I learned writing end editing film and television.

But it's a double-edged sword. Writing for the screen can lead you to write too visually, while ignoring the other senses. So I have to remind myself to engage all the senses. Don't just see it and hear it, but feel it, smell it, taste it. And while I agree with you that the "internal" dimension, when overused, leads to sluggishness, you can also err in the other direction (as I believe I did before getting my agent's and editor's notes).

Although this process works for me, I'm not at all convinced that having to add words during the re-writing process is objectively superior to having to cut. What do you think?

RM: Personally, I'm a fan of shorter works... not cool in modern crime writing, I know, with all these doorstoppers (since when was 80,000 words short? Huh?)… but... a good book is as long as it has to be. Luckily, I think BC,BB is pretty much the right length...

SC: Nice of you to say. And I share your preference. I realize that there's a market trend favoring doorstopers, but I like 'em lean and mean; no wasted words.

Case-in-point: Ken Bruen, a hero of mine and of many others who know great writing when it walks up and punches them in the eye. God, that man is a genius. He packs so much characterization, so much emotion, into so few words . . . truly amazing.

RM: One last question before we go... but it serves as a coda to our conversation earlier about fictional PIs and the real life... people keep sounding the death knell of the PI genre... yet BC,BB and other books keep disproving this myth... do you think there's any truth to the rumour and if not what do you think it is that appeals to readers about the PI in fiction?

SC: I don't buy it for a second. The PI novel will continue to wax and wane, but it won't die. The last time the PI novel was universally declared "dead" was just after the collapse of the counter-culture, during the Nixon administration. We were mired in a long and ill-conceived war, the president was using the constitution for toilet paper, the government was spying on its citizens, and conformity was the order of the day. This time, we are mired in a long and ill-conceived war, the president is using the constitution for toilet paper, the government is spying on its citizens, and conformity is the order of the day. Forgive me if I see a parallel.

The fictional PI is a deeply ingrained part of the American myth. He (or she – as there are many great female PIs) is not an outlaw, but lives on the edges of the law, and is ultimately a misfit in society. Legally sanctioned (barely) but willing to break the law when the law is wrong (and sometimes when the law is not wrong). In the best PI fiction, the world is not made up of Black Hats and White Hats, and the PI knows this. In the best PI fiction, those in positions of authority and power are sometimes morally inferior to your average whore or junkie, and the PI knows this, too. He disdains hypocrisy, and is not a follower. He disdains authority, and is utterly unfit for work as a cop or prosecuting attorney.

Does this sound like a hero for an Age Of Conformity? Not so much. But well-written PI novels will continue to be published during this time. And when our society moves past this ugly conformist era, the PI novel will again enjoy a resurgence in popularity.

Or perhaps I'm mistaken. . .

RM: I sure hope not… And as writers like Ken Bruen and Ray Banks have proven in the last few years, the PI isn’t even just an American archetype… that non-conformist with his own sense of justice can cross cultures, too…

SC: Good point. I didn’t mean to imply that the PI is just American. But virtually all of those who’ve declared the PI “dead” are American, from what I’ve seen, and the PI occupies a much larger share of American popular culture than of any other.

But yes, the PI is international, and I think some of the excellent PI novels coming from “across the pond” have helped to expand what is possible within the form and keep it vital. In addition to the authors you motioned, just look at what John Connolly has done with his PI, Charlie Parker. Parker is American, but Connolly brings an Irish sensibility to the work that has, without question, broadened the landscape.

Big City, Bad Blood is available now from Amazon, chain bookstores and good ol’ fashioned independents. We’re assured a sequel is on the way and if you need any more reason to seek it out, check out our review right here…

For more on Sean, check out http://www.chercover.com/. Tell ‘im the boys from Crime Scene Scotland sent ya…

BROKEN SKIN By Stuart MacBride

2007-05-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

HarperCollins, £12.99, ISBN 978-0007193172

There's always been a healthy air of humour about Stuart MacBride's darkly twisted procedural series featuring DS Logan McRae, but Broken Skin finally allows the author to let loose. There are genuine belly laughs here and - amazingly - they sit comfortably with some grim subject matter, allowing the author to not only inject some levity into proceedings but to do so without diminishing the more serious aspects of the novel.

And serious aspects there are. Among the brilliant forays into Aberdeen's porn industry, we find a serial rapist, a child who turns into a murderer and sexual abuse. MacBride, as ever, is juggling a lot of balls, and he's becoming an expert at keeping them smoothly in their air. Its great to see an author leap forward with such increasing confidence.

Logan McRae, as the lynchpin of MacBride's novels, is a fine character, but as ever with these things, its the supporting characters who steal the show. McRae's girlfriend, PC Jackie Watson is slowly becoming a more attractive version of Andy Sipowicz from NYPD Blue - 0ut on personal missions, taking liberties and possibly hitting as many bottles as she is suspects. DI Insch is a bullet headed, sweetie popping moron and his attempt to control a platoon of amateur dramatists in The Mikado is great fun. And, of course, DI Steel, who is not at home to Mr Fuck-Up, is a scenery munching tornado of a character whose levity and brass-neck pull the attention attention in every scene.

Its a credit to MacBride that the levity of his humour rarely diminishes the dramatic impact of the story. In fact, he manages to use both aspects of his storytelling to illuminate each other - and considering some of his subject material, that he can do this without seeming awkward or fluffing the attempt entirely is something to be applauded.

The key to this trick seems to be character. MacBride's cast are always memorable, rarely cliches and consistently surprising. Steel's evolution throughout the series is obvious, and she gets to have more fun here than ever before. Jackie Watson is more than just McRae's main squeeze and even the supporting cast seem to have evolved over the course of three novels. Surprising, considering one or two of them are muckraking journalists!

There's life in the British procedural yet. Macbride - along with Billingham - is living proof of that. He writes about a credibly flawed ensemble cast, with a sense of humour and an understanding of criminality that moves beyond the standard black and white image of moral standards that the average UK procedural seems to promote. Of course, MacBride's heart is still firmly rooted in the idea that the police are, ultimately, good guys. But he never preaches or handles their moral saintliness in a heavy handed fashion.

And, if certain characters implied actions are anything to go by, he may just be preparing to turn all our expectations on their heads...

Broken Skin is the most compelling novel yet from an excellent crime writer who just keeps getting better. No longer an upstart, no longer simply "one to watch", with Broken Skin MacBride places himself firmly among the must-read crop of modern British crime.

Russel D McLean for Crime Scene Scotland, 23/05/07

Buy Broken Skin from Amazon.co.uk

Buy Bloodshot (American title) from Amazon.com

THE DARKNESS INSIDE By John Rickards

2007-04-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Penguin, £6.99, 978-0141021164

Ex-FBI agent turned PI, Alex Rourke returns in John Rickard's third novel, The Darkness Inside, facing personal demons from his past when a convicted child-killer offers up a deathbed confession... in exchange for a confession from the man who put him behind bars in the first place...

This third novel feels almost like a relaunch of Rickards's series of novels featuring Alex Rourke. There's a partial sense of a slate being wiped clean, of the novel being an excellent jumping on point for new fans.

Indeed, there's very little mention of Alex's previous work beyond the return of some recurring characters (including his current boss), and this serves to bring a whole new set of readers directly on board without weighing them down with emotional baggage.

There are advatanges and disadvantages to this approach, of course. The advantage of clarity and relatively little backstory is immediately obvious. But some of the emotional resonance that could be brought to the story is diluted by almost glossing over past events. By which this reviewer means the traumatic incident that formed the heart of the second novel, A Touch of Ghosts. The death of a lover - particularly one who seemed so important to Alex just one book earlier - seems to have been hushed up. There are moments here and there where we notice this new Alex Rourke seems a little harder round the edges. More melancholy than before and perhaps even more reckless. And just a small acknowledgement of the trauma that brought this about might have rounded him out slightly. After all, in the opening sequence where Alex talks about people saying he's a "nice guy" there's a beautiful air of melancholy to the character that wisely stays away from self-pity, and it would be nice to know that there was something behind that air other than his current situation.

But all of this is a minor point, because if you take The Darkness Inside as a reboot to the series, a fresh jolt of adrenaline, and you have a novel that moves fast and quickly pulls the reader into its world. We know from word one that something bad is going to happen. That Alex's personal morality is about to be tested.

This new pacing works well, and after the set up, which is admittedly a little long - especially when we know what's coming - the book moves into a kind of freefall as Alex's life falls apart. There's a great adherence to the old adage of having a man walk through the door with a gun whenever the pacing falters, but Rickards keeps his action under control and believable for the most part, grounded by the more confident sounding narration of Alex Rourke. There is still the odd moment where Alex betrays his author's British roots (the phrase, "student-types" sounds particularly out of place when used to describe patrons at a bar) and sometimes the first person, present tense narration comes off a little clumsy, particularly during the flashbacks that take up the early part of the novel (although this reviewer is not a great fan of first person present-tense for precisely these reasons) but as we move to the climax, the narration gathers its pace and the confidence builds nicely. In fact, confidence is the key word here - while Rickards's earlier novels had nice touches (there is one - relatively quiet, almost incidental - scene in particular towards the end of Touch of Ghosts that stayed with this reviewer long after closing the pages) there is more consistency on display here that bodes well for future novels.

In all, The Darkness Inside is a well constructed thriller with a likeably down to earth protagonist caught up in an increasingly dangerous situation. Narrative nods to shows like Twenty-Four and novels by writers such as Harlan Coben are easy to spot as Rickards piles the pressure on his hero to ludicrous degrees. Its all a little unlikely, as these things are, but ultimately engaging and the well-executed tension keeps those pages turning.

Its a nice turn out for a series, too, with the drive and tone inkeeping with previous books, but shaking up the situation to make things more action packed. For readers like me, a few more continuity nods might have been nice, but as a relaunch to the series, this breezy thriller makes an ideal jumping on point for readers who are new to Rickards' world.

Russel McLean for CrimeSceneScotland, 26/05/07
Buy The Darkness Inside from Amazon.co.uk

DONKEY PUNCH by Ray Banks

2007-04-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

Polygon Press, 2007, £9.99, ISBN 978-1904598855

Cal Innes is back. And you’ll be glad to know he hasn’t cleaned up his act. If anything, the hopelessly deluded ex-con we first met in Saturday’s Child has slipped further down the tubes.

An addiction to painkillers, a selfish streak ten miles wide and an inability to let tell the truth – even to himself – all combine to make Cal one of the most intriguing characters on the crime fiction scene.

At Crime Scene Scotland we’ve already remarked on author Ray Banks’s ability to write violence so real it hurts. So it seems only natural that he would turn his attention to boxing, a sport that has always been associated with the best of noir.

What perhaps wasn’t expected was that Banks would take Cal out of his natural environment. But the best novels take risks, and Donkey Punch takes a huge one when it rips Cal out of Manchester and throws him into the centre of that most noir of American cities, LA, where dreams are dashed and pain is always as psychological as it is physical. This is the city Ellroy demystified: we all know of the dark heart that keeps the city alive. Don’t mistake this change of locale for some kind of gimmick. Transplanting Cal to a place where he is even more out of his depth than usual is as thematically important as it is dramatically.

Since Saturday’s Child, Cal’s given up on the PI pipedream. If there’s one thing he does right here, its realise that he was only ever playacting. And for a brief, wondrous moment, you wonder if he might have grown up. But Cal is a special kind of stubborn and even if he’s no longer printing up cards at motorway service stations so he looks professional, he’s still deluding himself. He denies his addiction to painkillers. He denies his responsibility for Mo Tiernan harassing his mate Paulo at the local gym. And most of all, he denies his own temper; that terrible, irrational part of himself that seems to set off the worst of the trouble around him.

But what’s a man without friends? Paulo can see his mate’s hurting and he knows that a change is as good as a rest. Cal needs to get away from the stimulus of Manchester that’s bringing out the worst in him, so Cal winds up in charge of a prodigal boxing champ. A young lad with a temper to match even Cal’s. But how much of a minder can Cal make for this young fella with fire in his belly and a temper to match?

The boxing motif weaves perfectly into the continuing themes of responsibility that echo from Saturday’s Child – and even Banks’s debut, The Big Blind. Responsibility for action is paramount to Bank’s work. Never in a preachy fashion, but you start to wonder about his characters and how much they understand the way in which they act, the way in which they so often become their own worst enemies.

As Cal sinks deeper into the world of semi-pro boxing, he finds that its every bit as corrupt as he expected. When bribes and bungs rear their ugly heads, Cal acts almost stunned:

…what happened was I had a bribe forced on me. That’s not an acceptance, there’s no culpability in that.

An extreme case of denial? Or something even more troubling?

Perhaps it all comes down to discipline. That’s part of boxing, too, even if it is something Cal lacks. He’s got his “temper flash” that keeps getting him into trouble. Something upsets him, he goes off like a bomb. He may be a shit fighter (as Saturday’s Child proved more than once), but he wades in with more than gusto. His anger gets the better of him every time, and maybe that’s why Paulo sent him off with this young lad – hoping that Cal can learn to be a responsible human being if he’s forced into the position of role model to someone who mirrors his faults.

But Cal isn’t the quickest of learners, and soon enough he’s mired in the murkier side of boxing and rapidly pissing off the inhabitants of LA. Not to mention failing miserably to keep an eye on his charge.

When it comes to taking a character out their natural environment, a real challenge is presented to the writer. And thankfully Banks rises to the challenge, producing an incredible sense of LA, not simply as a physical location but as a state of mind. It’s a far cry from the glitzy glamour the city of Angels would like to fool us with, and Banks plays the sprawling, unconventional nature of the city to its hilt through implication and action. The oddly sober, smoke-free bar life, the public veneer of the citizens versus their true nature… this is an LA a far cry from Hollywood. And seen from the perspective of an outsider, it takes on an odd, unreal quality. This is an alien landscape, a place that is slightly unreal to a working class lad like Cal. And he doesn’t treat it as awe-inspiring or mythic so much as just plain weird. His frustration offsets the mythology, bringing LA back down to earth with a bump. Check out Cal’s efforts to find a pub where he can smoke or his encounter with a supposed prostitute.

While the dual narrative of Saturday’s Child (alternating between Cal and the psychotic Mo Tiernan) is gone, Banks still takes risks with this novel. There is a deliberate move away from traditional crime fiction tropes. There is no mystery to be solved. No real bad guys (check out the excellent discussion between Cal and Nelson about the movie Shane and how there’s no good guys or bad guys anymore, foreshadowing the novel’s own twisting of moral and ethical lines concerning character’s motivations). Even Cal’s shrugging off his PI dreams are indicative that this is something else, a different kind of story. This is the kind of crime novel you can show to your literary friends and say, “this is what crime fiction can do.” More importantly it shows that series characters can evolve, that a series doesn’t have to rehash the same situations and ideas.

Donkey Punch is more than a contender. It’s a complex character study that has a fearsome energy and a dark heart. There’s a wit and intelligence running through the narrative that never obliquely reveals itself, but rather hides in the words and actions of Banks’s characters.

If there is a problem, it’s the topping and tailing of the story in Manchester which reintroduces us to Mo Tiernan and Paulo at the lad’s club. If you haven’t read Saturday’s Child, then the threat Mo poses might seem a little indistinct (and his appearance might seem to have little relevance to the main plot) and may appear merely to be bookends to the main event. In the grand scheme, of course, they are absolutely necessary not just to reintroduce Cal but to show us how things have moved on since the last book. There is also a feeling by the end of the novel, that the threat posed by Mo is going to become more serious as this sequence of novels progress.

If you’ve never read Banks before, you need to start now. Donkey Punch – even on its own – is a knock-out novel. Read in conjunction with its predecessor, Saturday’s Child, it becomes the perfect follow-through, highlighting themes and motifs from the earlier novel, while advancing character and action. This is how a series should work: not merely reiterating earlier success, but moving forward with characters, plucking them out of their comfort zones, moving their lives forward in a way that feels absolutely real.

For those bored with the traditional approach of crime and mystery series – who know that there is more to be found in the big, bad world of crime fiction – Banks is the man. His books are smart, unpredictable and, above all, dangerous. And Donkey Punch – even without the benefit of reading Saturday’s Child – confirms his status as one of the best crime writers working in the UK today.

Russel McLean for crimescenescotland.com, 11/04/07

HARD MAN by Allan Guthrie

2007-04-10T17:08:00.000-07:00

Polygon Press, 2006. £9.99, ISBN: 9781846970047

Pearce, the Edinburgh hard-man who first appeared in Guthrie’s debut, Two Way Split, is living the quiet life in his dead mum’s flat. Just him, his three legged dog and no complications.

Until, that is, the Baxter family ask him to help their daughter, May. She’s sixteen, married to a violent bastard. And pregnant. The Baxter’s aren’t exactly lily-white themselves, but Wallace, their new in-law, is a real psychopath.

Pearce isn’t interested. Sure, the sob story would break any normal man’s heart, but all Pearce wants is to be left alone. And so he stays out of it. Until someone decides to make this personal. Until things get really… hard.

Guthrie’s third novel comes out roaring, with a black, almost surreal, vision of Edinburgh. His violent, stripped-down novels are enough to send traditional mystery fans scampering behind the sofa. But for all the violence and madness of his first two outings, it seems Guthrie has only been scraping the surface of his dark muse. Because Hard Man delivers on a potential that has so far only been hinted at. There’s a sense of velocity from the word go, and as the novel progresses, events move entirely out of control until the final third delivers a denouement that is as inspired as it is insane.

Throughout all of this, Guthrie barely pauses for breath. The set-up, sure, takes its time, but it’s a slow build only in comparison to the free-fall velocity that kicks in after the novel’s major turning point about two thirds of the way through. This is an author who doesn’t believe in wasting moments. Who tells us what we need to know and no more. Who doesn’t have us searching for the next exciting moment because we’re there already.

The pace of Hard Man reminds you of the sage words of Elmore Leonard: “leave out the part the reader’s tend to skip.”

Of course, if you come at it from the wrong direction, it could look paper thin. Everything is surface. There is no explicit reason given for Wallace’s insanity (which, by the end of the novel, has reached depths you never excepted) and Pearce’s relationship with his mother is only ever hinted at, never explored deeply (and why should it? There’s no need to know anything beyond the fact Perace was devoted to the old dear). Indeed, every time Pearce comes close to a maudlin thought, the narrative tosses the moment aside, shows it as superfluous. Perhaps this is a deliberate reaction to a propensity in crime fiction for certain authors to wallow in character-led introspection. Perhaps Pearce, for all his faults, is almost Buddha-like in his simple approach to life.

This is new wave noir, and for once we can fill in the details ourselves, because what rockets us along is the knowledge of characters in the here and now. They are here. They exist. Take them as they are or leave them. Fill in the details from implication not explanation.

Guthrie’s cast of oddball psychopaths often play like Scottish characters created by the Coen brothers. They’re insane, self-centred, contradictory and oddly real. Guthrie – like the Coens – has taken a harsh reality and moved it left of centre. There’s a sense of surreality here, and it works perfectly.

Because Hard Man is a tragi-comedy. Something that becomes cemented at the turning point which occurs maybe a third of the way through the novel.

But Guthrie never makes an explicit joke of any of the more surreal elements that propel his novel. For his characters – for Pearce, the Baxters and Wallace – there is nothing funny happening. And that serves to make the (exceedingly dark) comedy more genuine, arising as it does from the sheer natural lunacy of situation and characters.

And among all this, there is pain. Vicious, violent. Wrenchingly real. And undeniably effective.

The contrast between the pain and the humour highlights the reality of events for the characters. Guthrie’s people – no matter how exaggerated or insane – bleed, scream and cry like any human being. We are thrust into this pain, shown it from the point of view of those at its centre. We do not casually observe. We do not see it from the point of view of the perpetrators. We are thrown into the pain. We are there with Pearce when he winds up in a pitch-black basement (or is it hell?) his body bruised and battered after an encounter with Wallace.

All of these elements – and masturbating hamsters (which sounds ludicrous, but again fits neatly into the plot without being too much of a “look at me” moment) – combine to make Hard Man almost unique among modern crime novels.

Guthrie, along with Williams, Banks and Bruen, is traversing the traditional boundaries of British crime. Crafting books about “bad people doing bad things” and daring to write intriguing characters who are not necessarily sympathetic. For all the lunacy, there’s an honest grounding to his work that other, more “real” writers often miss as they strive to create brooding and morally upright worlds.

The direct approach of the narrative sometimes means that aspects such as motivation are hinted at rather than obliquely referenced, which will undoubtedly upset a certain portion of readers, but for those of us who like to fill in the blanks and who find exposition and bloat tedious in the extreme, Guthrie has given us a wonderful, darkly surreal noir novel. This is an author who, after three books, has found his voice near pitch perfect.

Hard Man is a dark, perfectly placed journey through psychoses, surreality and the twilight world of noir that is Guthrie’s twisted vision of Edinburgh. Combining the tougher elements of Kiss Her Goodbye with the more tragic-comic aspects of Two Way Split has allowed Guthrie to find a unique and decidedly twisted new approach to British crime writing. Guthrie’s third novel is not only his best, but his most confident outing yet. By turns laugh out loud funny and bone-crunchingly painful, this is one of those rare books that truly demands to be read.

Think you know hard?

You haven’t read Hard Man.

Russel D McLean for crimescenescotland.com, 11/04/07

Professional ethics disclaimer: The author knows Allan Guthrie in both a personal and professional regard. It is the second that warrants this disclaimer as undoubtedly some wag may use it to debunk the review and possibly the reviewer. As with every novel that comes to us at Crime Scene Scotland, we have composed the review without taking personal considerations regarding the author into account. In short, this is an unbiased review and the professional relationship is being revealed only in the interests of full disclosure.

Trust us: we’d have loved this book even if it was written by Jeffrey Archer.

Christ, we’d pay to see Jeffrey Archer try something like this…

CROSS by Ken Bruen

2007-04-01T17:20:00.000-07:00

Transworld Publishers, £17.99(hb)/£10.99(pb), ISBN: 978-0593055137

The Jack Taylor novels have a habit of ending with a kick to the gut. The last installment, Priest, was no exception, and now Jack's mourning for his mortally wounded surrogate-son, Cody, who went from being a right pain in the arse to becoming Taylor's stand-in for family.

So it goes in the world of author Bruen, where noir is not just a word but a way of life.

To add to Taylor's troubles, a young lad has been crucfied, dogs are missing from the streets, and people are turning to Galway's premier (and somewhat unnoficial) PI to help them.

This is perhaps one of the strongest plotted of the Taylor novels. With a more traditionally thriller-like premise (Taylor hunting down the crucufix killers) Bruen still manages to achieve the lyrical rhythm that has made the rest of this series so addictive. Taylor is still howling with pain, salved only by books and literature. His relationship with the Garda is as antangonistic as ever and the dance of friendship with female Guard, Ridge, is a back-and-forth of emotional honest and sudden distance.

As strong as the main plot is, its still the personal that drives this novel. The Taylor novels have earned their unique position in crime literature by being more an exploration of character and the sick spirit of an Ireland dragged reluctantly into the modern world. Taylor's reaction to the changing world around him is a need to get out of this place, and its almost ironic that he should consider a plane ticket to America when part of his problem with Galway seems to be the way that it is becoming more American.

But the plot itself is strong and comprises an exploration of the nature of evil. Some people just turn bad, and you don't get worse than the family behind the crucifixion whose self-justification is but a flimsy excuse for the fear that drives some and the dark heart that drives others. Indeed, when Taylor confronts his suspects, it leads to some of the novel's most chilling scenes, and images - sharply, concisely conveyed - that stay with you a long time after the novel is finished.

One just has to wonder how much more punishment Bruen can put on poor Taylor before the man cracks up irretreivably (he's come close before). We can hope for a happy ending, but as the ending of Cross shows - and indeed as we have come to learn from the other Taylor novels - this is a Bruen world. A noir world.

And while we may see the glimmer of hope, we can never know that it is anything more than that.

With writing like Bruen's, of course - punchy, rhythmic, dark and affecting - we wouldn't have it any other way.

Russel McLean for crimescenescotland.com, 02/04/07