Film News: The Gunman

The Gunman which is released 20 March is based on Jean-Patrick Manchette's The Prone Gunman and stars Sean Penn as Martin Terrier. It's been a while since I read and reviewed the book but I remember it packed a punch.

If you've read it more recently than I, see if you recognise the story in this trailer (the shorter of the two I found):



The film also features Wolf Hall's Mark Rylance - he is in the longer trailer.

New Reviews - Leon, Wingfield etc

Here are this week's new reviews and details of this month's competitions.

Latest Reviews:

Maxine Clarke reviews the paperback edition of Simon Beckett's Written in Bone writing that it is "superbly and tightly plotted and proceeds at a thrilling pace";

Declan Burke reviews the latest in the Ed Loy PI series from Declan Hughes - The Dying Breed (US: The Price of Blood) calling it a "complex, labyrinthine, gritty, coarse (and, yes, bloody) novel";

I review the second in the Sarah Tanner series from Victorian supremo L M Jackson - The Mesmerist's Apprentice which I found took a while to warm up, but worth the wait;

Maxine also review the new outing from Donna Leon - The Girl of His Dreams which sees a return to form for the mistress of Venice;

Staying over the Channel, Norman Price reviews the succint offering from Jean-Patrick Manchette - Three to Kill - saying that it is a "taut superbly written noir thriller"

and back in the UK, Fiona Walker enthuses about the latest and, alas, last Frost book from R D Wingfield - A Killing Frost.


Current Competitions (closing date 30 April):

Win a copy of The Trophy Taker by Lee Weeks*

Win a copy of The Death Maze by Ariana Franklin**

Win a copy of An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson**


* UK/Europe only
**No geographical restrictions on entrants

For once Amazon recommends - gets it right

I was very impressed by 'The Prone Gunman', reviewed here on Euro Crime and I am looking forward to reading Michael Walters' Mongolian series of which, 'The Shadow Walker', is the first. So I was stunned when amazon.co.uk, read my mind, sort of:

Greetings from Amazon.co.uk
We've noticed that customers who have expressed interest in "Prone Gunman" by Jean-Patrick Manchette have also ordered "The Shadow Walker" by Michael Walters. For this reason, you might like to know that this book will be released on 3 May 2007.

You can read more about Michael Walters and 'The Shadow Walker' on his new(ish) website. He is published by Quercus and you can see from this list of new Autumn titles that the second in the series, 'The Adversary', will be out in October.