New Reviews: Baylis, Brett, Charles, Connor, Corbin, Janes, Staincliffe, Weaver, Wilson

Here are nine reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, three have appeared on the blog since last time, and six are completely new.

NB. You can keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page.

New Reviews

Lynn Harvey reviews The Tottenham Outrage by M H Baylis and she liked it very much;

Rich Westwood reviews Simon Brett's Blotto, Twinks and the Riddle of the Sphinx, which is now out in paperback;

Mark Bailey reviews Paul Charles's The Lonesome Heart is Angry, set in Northern Ireland;

Amanda Gillies reviews The Bosch Deception by Alex Connor;

Michelle Peckham reviews Now That You're Gone by Julie Corbin;


Terry Halligan reviews Tapestry by J Robert Janes, the fourteenth in the St-Cyr and Kohler series set in Occupied Paris;

Laura Root calls Cath Staincliffe's Letters to My Daughter's Killer - "a little gem";

Susan White reviews Fall From Grace by Tim Weaver, the fifth in his David Raker series and




Terry also reviews Robert Wilson's You Will Never Find Me, the second in his Charlie Boxer series.





Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

New Reviews: Bates, Beaton, Bolton, Harvey, Meredith, Mogford, Morris, Roslund & Hellstrom, Wilson

Here are nine reviews which have been added to the Euro Crime website today, one has appeared on the blog over the last couple of weeks and eight are completely new.

Since the last set of reviews, we've announced the winner of the Petrona Award 2014; I've been at CrimeFest and you can see my notes on twitter @eurocrime or on #crimefest14, and there's been lots of tv news.

NB. You can keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page.

New Reviews

Geoff Jones reviews the latest in Quentin Bates's Icelandic series, Cold Steal which has just been released as an ebook;

I muse on the latest books in M C Beaton's Hamish Macbeth series including Death of a Policeman;

Michelle Peckham reviews the fourth in the Lacey Flint series by Sharon Bolton: A Dark and Twisted Tide;

Mark Bailey reviews John Harvey's Darkness, Darkness which is the last in the Resnick series and, I understand, his final crime novel;

Amanda Gillies reviews The Devil's Ribbon by D E Meredith, which is now out in paperback;

Rich Westwood reviews Thomas Mogford's Sign of the Cross which is set in Malta;

Terry Halligan reviews R N Morris's The Dark Palace, the third in the Silas Quinn series, set in 1914;

Lynn Harvey reviews Two Soldiers by Roslund & Hellstrom tr. Kari Dickson, which is now out in paperback

and Terry also reviews Capital Punishment by Robert Wilson, which is the first in the Charlie Boxer series and is also now out in paperback.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

TV News: Falcón starts next week

Sky Atlantic have snapped up Falcón, a four-part series based on the first two of Robert Wilson's Seville-based, Detective Javier Falcon books.

The series begins at 10pm on Thursday, 15 November and stars Marton Csokas [from The Debt] as Falcón, Emilia Fox as his wife Ines. Guest stars include Bernard Hill and Robert Lindsay.

From Sky Atlantic:

The first story to be adapted is The Blind Man of Seville, which follows Falcón‘s investigation into a brutal killing which stirs long forgotten memories. As Falcón investigates the crime, and finds himself drawn to the widow of the victim, he discovers the secret truth about his artist father’s violent history in Tangier and the Spanish Civil War.

The second story to be adapted is The Silent and the Damned, in which a double suicide takes Falcón to an exclusive area of Seville where wealthy neighbours keep their secrets well hidden and there’s more in the freezer than just food.

Harrogate - The Golden Age?

My next panel was on Saturday morning about The (A?) Golden Age.

From the programme:

For many, the Golden Age of British crime fiction was the 1920s and 1930s, when writers such as Christie, Allingham, and Sayers were at their peaks. Others would argue that we are currently living through crime fiction’s true Golden Age and that contemporary writers are more than a match for the Golden Oldies. Banging the drum for the here and now are Stuart Neville and Robert Wilson, while Nicola Upson and David Roberts will be talking up the cosies. Chairman, Martyn Waites (aka Tania Carver) will do his best not to take sides.

My notes:

The Golden Age dead or is it now? Was it the Golden Age and what made it so?

NU crucial age of crime fiction was between wars as lots of writers working with set conventions. TGA established a genre of crime fiction with set rules that can then be broken.

DR hates that word cosy - demeaning and patronising. TGA started 1920 and died out in 1950s; there were some superb novelists eg Dorothy L Sayers, who despised own books; Agatha Christie was a good writer, Tey, Nicholas Blake - that's what makes it GA - very good writers and better than a lot today (ooh! -  controversy)

RW said after WW1, needing to set the world to rights. He reminded self of GA by reading Strong Poison (DLS); ruling classes wiped out the working class by bad decisions, but business as usual in novels. DR disagreed - upper classes suffered great losses too, first over the top life expectancy of two weeks for young officers. Rules about good and evil, which are not so clear in modern novels as "evil" is explained by social reasons. RW said that by the end of WW2 knew what is evil is : Hitler.

NU: direct correlation between WW! and GA but not due to class. Books show the importance of an individual life -  one life can matter against mass slaughter of war.

SN asks who's reading GA?

MW:  Christie villains often a foreigner or a member of working class. But DR said don't forget Poirot ia foreign refugee and that Miss Marple is part of a despised generation and a spinster. Upper classes can ask questions and and travel so as not restricted to a couple of villages like Midsommer Murders - so convenient  to have aristocratic sleuth, not just snobbery.

Character of today's crime fiction.

SN said not *the* GA,  several GAs eg Chandler, Hammet, Irish (though not sure that's true), Scandinavian.
 
SN writes about a sympathetic mass murderer. Sophisticated readership needed?

DR said there was too much violence in RWs books. The constant use of violence is like a drug, keeps needing to be increased.

MW said have moral responsibility to put violence in book as dealing with a violent death.

NU:  Tey made a distinction between legal and moral justice.

DR:  Harret Vane (in DLS) almost died,  not because of murder but because of not being married to the person she was living with.

MW: when read GA didn't recognise the England in it as he grew up in Newcastle.

Is it yearning for an England that didn't exist?

SN - all crime fiction is escapism. Amplified compared to real life and you get justice - also rare in real life.
RW - Scandinavian crime fiction popular as seen as ideal countries, now no-one want to go there!

MW - original titles of TGWTDT - Men who Hate Women - could be a title for any noir novel.

NU - Not all GA set in village eg Tiger in the Smoke by Allingham is set in London. Read Tey to see what it's like for women between the wars.

DR - why would you reread once you know the killer but AC still read in France, USA. How many books written today would people go back to? No cohesive school.

SN - there are movements rather than individual novels: tartan noir, Irish, Scandinavian.

GA definition excludes writers such as Patrick Hamilton.

Books read from that period do seem to be crime fiction rather than best sellers/classics (eg Huxley)

MW - nice if bit sooner didn't have to wait 50 years to be feted.

RW is term cosy patronising? Yes says DR.

AC is fondly remembered as bridge gap between child and adult reading.

MW suggests that cosy has mutated into forensic novel? eg Patricia Cornwell doesn't look at psychology behind it, less cake and more blood.

NU: best novels put character forefront.

DR would put P D James into GA. He hates violence and serial killers in modern stuff. Detective who is alcoholic, chip on shoulder and close family is investigated and they go and investigate - "word for it, self-indulgent comes to mind".

MW mentions Knox's The Decalogue, the ten rules for crime fiction reads out many of them eg must not include a Chinaman.

SN love writing from villain(s) pov, if couldn't write from that then couldn't write at all.

DR asks do you identify with killer? SN says evil doesn't know its own reflection. In their mind are doing the right thing. NU loves to write murder's pov as well. People like you and me not evil. Doesn't see self as writing GA novels as writing with modern sensibility re sex, violence set in the past. MW every one is a hero in their own story.

DR greatest proponent of this is Patricia Highsmith with Ripley - a modern GA writer, little violence but MW disagrees. There is violence but not modern torture.

RW re Thomas Harris - M Mann version of Lecter was evil, Anthony Hopkins version is a vaudeville character but more popular.

What have we gained/lost from GA?

SN it established a framework. Variety crime fiction can take. (leading onto phrase) transcends the genre - MW "twatish phrase that is!"

NU books we can enjoy, in bucket-loads. People return to Tey

DR more than just taking a sweetie - put aside Henry James and pick up Aggie with a guilty sigh.

Question from the audience:
Why do people keep creating defective humans?

MW - people like to read about damaged people and so feel better about self.

SN - deals with phsical rather than emotional damage in new book.

MW - happy is hard to write about. SN - Brian McGilloway does it well

DR - write about decent people not necessarily happy

NU  - most damaged person she's written about- Alfred Hitchcock. Day to day morality for Tey and DLS - they didn't always write abut murder

SH - defective detective - can work if genius eg Sherlock Holmes.

DR - loves P James books but wishes Grace would "only find his bloody wife" and then he could relax.

MW: any good novel should make you laugh/cry/think.

First GA was female, English writers and second one influenced by Americans.

Chandler and Wodehouse in same class at Dulwich. Imagine Marlowe & Wooster together!

New Reviews: Becker, Hammesfahr, Jones & Allison, Sampson, Saylor, Wilson

The settings for this week's books include the UK, Spain, Germany, Italy, Israel and China:

Amanda Gillies reviews The Moses Stone by James Becker, an excellent follow-up to The First Apostle;

Maxine Clarke reviews Petra Hammesfahr's The Lie which she found didn't live up to the promise of The Sinner;

Terry Halligan reviews Fat Blackmail by Bruce Kennedy Jones and Eric Allison the sequel to The Last Straight Face;

Michelle Peckham reviews the recent paperback release of The Slaughter Pavilion by Catherine Sampson, set in China;

Amanda Brown reviews the paperback edition of Steven Saylor's The Triumph of Caesar, the latest in his Gordianus the Finder series

and Norman Price reviews The Ignorance of Blood by Robert Wilson the final book in the Javier Falcon quartet.

Previous reviews can be found in the review archive and forthcoming titles can be found here.