Monthly Archive for November, 2009

Love In Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet (52 Books, 40 Down, 12 To Go)

Published
by
Chris
on November 23, 2009
in 52 Books 52 Weeks
. 0 Comments

Lydia Millet is an author more people should be familiar with. Her latest book,Love in Infant Monkeys, is her first short story collection. When describing Millet to someone recently I said she was sort of a female George Saunders, which only partly does her justice. Her work is filled with dark humor and a startling range. Love In Infant Monkeys are stories about famous people and their relationships with the animal species. They veer back and forth between high and low culture. The book opens with a story about Madonna hunting pheasant and trying to be suitably British. There are also stories about David Hasselhoff’s dog walker and about Sharon Stone and the Komodo dragon that bit her then husband. Mixed with these are stories about Tesla and his pigeons, Edison and the elephant he had executed during his experiments with electric current, and Noam Chomsky at the town dump. Endlessly inventive, Millet is a joy to read.

Say It With Bullets by Richard Powell (52 Books, 39 Down, 13 To Go)

Published
by
Chris
on November 23, 2009
in 52 Books 52 Weeks
. 0 Comments

I’ve had mixed success with the Hard Case Crime titles I’ve read. Fortunately, Richard Powell’s Say It With Bullets is just what I was expecting from the Hard Case Crime collection. Bill Wayne was shot by one of his army buddies while in China and left for dead. After a period of recuperation, he is back in the states and wants some answers. He books tourist bus trip to travel across the country, visiting each one of his old buddies on the way. He gets involved with the tour guide, who he knew as a kid and to make matters even more complicated, his old friends start turning up dead just as he meets up with them. The page turner is perfectly paced, very funny,  and highly recommended.

The Colorado Kid by Stephen King (52 Books, 38 Down, 14 To Go)

Published
by
Chris
on November 23, 2009
in 52 Books 52 Weeks
. 0 Comments

The Colorado Kid is Stephen King’s contribution to Hard Case Crime’s collection. I probably haven’t read any Stephen King since I was a teenager, There was a time when I enjoyed his books, especially the short stories, but somewhere around the release of Gerald’s Game, I just wasn’t into it anymore. Perhaps King’s writing changed. More likely my tastes veered off to things more substantial. Over the years though, King seems to have gained a a certain amount of respect from the critical establishment, and I have always remained a bit curious. So when I started reading these Hard Case Crime novels, I figured that The Colorado Kid would be the perfect place to dip my toes back into the water. I was wrong.
The Colorado Kid opens with a writer from The Boston Globe meeting with two small town Maine newspaperman and thier intern. He is looking for unslved mystery stories for a piece in the Globe. While they don’t share anything with the writer from the Globe, the two men do share the story with their intern later in the day. Unfortunately, the tale they tell of a body found on the island that couldn’t be identified, is ultimately very boring and tedious. Worse yet is King’s insistence at trying to capture the local witticisms and vernacular of Maine. It’s not just distracting, it’s annoying. Avoid at all costs.

Bust By Ken Bruen And Jason Starr (52 Books, 37 Down, 15 To Go)

Published
by
Chris
on November 23, 2009
in 52 Books 52 Weeks
. 0 Comments

Bust is the first book in Ken Bruen’s and Jason Starr’s trilogy for Hard Case Crime that also includes Slide and The Max. Like The Max, which was previously mentioned here, Bust is hugely funny, irreverent, and extremely entertaining. The novel follows the early days of Max Fisher and his success as a businessman. His involvement with his secretary, Angela Petrakos, leads to Fisher to have his wife killed. Blackmail, sleaze, and even more mayhem ensues. Bust is highly recommended for those who enjoy a good mystery sprinkled with heavy doses of sleaze and raunchiness. Good stuff all around.

The Max by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr (52 Books, 36 Down, 16 To Go)

Published
by
Chris
on November 18, 2009
in 52 Books 52 Weeks
. 0 Comments

When I started reading The Max I didn’t realize that it was the concluding volume in a trilogy. It turns out it’s not a big deal. It can be read separately, without any knowledge of the prior volumes. In The Max we follow Max Fisher as he goes off to jail, and his former lover Angela Petrakos on her journey from Greece back to the United States to weasel some money out of Max. What follows is a wildly irreverent ride, the type I would expect from a book imprint called Hard Case Crime. Ken Bruen and Jason Starr have composed a very funny and surprisingly meta story. I don’t think I have ever read a mystery that is nearly so self-reflexive to the genre as The Max is. Highly recommended.

New David Mitchell Novel Due In June 2010

Published
by
Chris
on November 11, 2009
in Books
. 0 Comments

At long last, Amazon has a listing for the new David Mitchell novel The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet:. I seems like every other Mitchell book (Ghostwritten
, Cloud Atlas) blows me away, so I’m due.

Exit Music by Ian Rankin (52 Books, 35 Down, 17 To Go)

Published
by
Chris
on November 1, 2009
in 52 Books 52 Weeks
. 0 Comments

Exit Music is Ian Rankin’s seventeenth, and likely final, Inspector Rebus book. After having dipped in and out of Rebus (mostly in) for the past year, the sense of loss that I feel knowing there will likely be no more Rebus books is negated by the way Rankin chose to end the series. Rankin is a true master who transcends the mystery genre and Exit Music may be his finest moment. Rankin sticks to his usual m.o. of tying the story into current events, as Russian oligarchs looking to invest in Scotland may be tied into the murder of a Russian poet. It’s a somewhat slimmer book than Rankin’s previous few, mainly due to the streamlined storyline (there aren’t several story threads being woven together this time around). Simply put, a novelist at the height of his powers.

Grave Descend by John Lange (52 Books, 34 Down, 18 To Go)

Published
by
Chris
on November 1, 2009
in 52 Books 52 Weeks
. 3 Comments

More from the Hard Case Crime series….Grave Descend is an older novel that Hard Case had unearthed and republished. It was nominated for an Edgar award back in 1971, which surprises me. While these Hard Case Crime books are fun, they really aren’t to the level of something that is nominated for an Edgar. It wasn’t until I had finished the book that I found out the John Lange is a pseudonym for Michael Crichton and that this was published two years before he published a novel under hos own name. Apparently Cricihton did a revision of ths text before his death. I’ve read a few Crichton books in the past and, well, let’s just say I am not looking to read anything of his these days. That said, these Hard Crime books are a fun way to pass an afternoon.

The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins (52 Books, 33 Down, 19 To Go)

Published
by
Chris
on November 1, 2009
in 52 Books 52 Weeks
. 0 Comments

I picked up a huge stack og these Hard Case Crime books early this year for two reasons. One, I wanted to start reading some pulp. The second is that I couldn’t resist the covers. Max Allan Collins The Last Quarry is the first of them that I have read and I am pleasantly surprised. These aren’t great works of art or anything, but are a fun way to spend a few hours. I had no knowledge of Collins’ Quarry series before starting this, and, as the title implies, this is to be the last Quarry book. Basically, the professional hitman Quarry comes out of retirement for one last hit.
The Last Quarry has obviously been a hit for Collins and Hard Case because he has since written The First Quarry and Quarry In The Middle, both of which I’ll be keeping my eye out for.

The Naming Of The Dead by Ian Rankin (52 Books, 32 Down, 20 To Go)

Published
by
Chris
on November 1, 2009
in 52 Books 52 Weeks
. 0 Comments

The Naming of the Dead is the sixteenth in Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus series. Like many of Rankin’s other Rebus novels, this one centers on contemporary events, namely the G8 summit just outside of Edinburgh. Like his last few novels, this one is quite a tome, weighing in at nearly 600 pages. Despite the length, it doesn’t have the bloated feeling that the last couple of books had. Rankin is actually quite spot on, balancing events at the summit with that of a serial killer who is killing former sexual offenders.

It’s not much of a surprise that Rankin isn’t a more popular writer in the United States than he is. He is definitely too cerebral for most American sensibilities. Works like this transcend mere genre fiction and are truly works of art. Just one more Rebus to go…