MARCH 2010

MARCH 2010

Jess Walter – Citizen Vince

GM Ford – Who In Hell Is Wanda Fuca

Stuart MacBride – Sawbones

Stephen Bochco – Death By Hollywood

Hugh Collins – No Smoke

William Pelfrey – Hamburger Hill

Paul Thomas – Dirty Laundry

Two outstanding candidates for book of the month - Citizen Vince and Death By Hollywood. It’s a shame that Bochco hasn’t written any other books, I keep checking from time to time but no cigar. Walter has written more, most of it on my TBR pile which is something to look forward to. I’m playing catch up so I’m not going to go into any detail on these two efforts, but suffice to say I’d recommend them to anyone and if time allowed I’d re-read the pair of them.

Pelfrey’s HH – not sure if it was a novelisation of the film or an original that spawned the film, either way........hmmm okay.

Sawbones, I feel sure was a Quick-Read and as such was quickly forgotten.

Wanda Fuca was the first in a series about an investigator, Leo Waterman based in Seattle........okay and I’ve got others in this and his second series of books with Frank Corso. Having read one of each I’d prefer the Corso titles, but I didn’t feel I’d wasted 8 or 10 hours of my life that I’d never get back.

Hugh Collins is a Scottish ex-con, who turned to writing. As well as an autobiography he’s written a couple of novels, or was it the other way round? This wasn’t too bad, I struggled in a few places with it but it was a 1000 times more readable than James Kelman.

Paul Thomas is a journo based Down Under. This crime fiction tome was the first of 3 about a Maori detective in New Zealand. The second won Australia’s Ned Kelly Crime Writing Award.  Humorous writing style a la Carl Hiaasen. Worth a look if you come across any of his books, but you won’t find them on any “100 of....” list, and they probably won’t be on too many people’s bucket list either.

Monthly total 7, yearly total 24!