Monday 1 August 2016

LOGGING THE LIBRARY - PART SEVENTY-SEVEN

Tub 77 and an abundance of YA books from my son. Will I read them? Never say never.
Tub 77!

Patricia Highsmith, William Shaw, Kris Nelscott, Gerald Seymour, Jim Dwyer/Kevin Flynn,

Got to love a good thriller!

C.R.O.P.: Covert Rural Observation Posts are places where men like Danny 'Badger' Baxter hide for endless, motionless hours, secretly recording criminal or terrorist activity.But now Badger has a bigger job than photographing dissident Republicans in muddy Ulster fields or Islamic extremists on rainswept Yorkshire moors.I.E.D.: Improvised Explosive Devices are the roadside bombs which account for 80% of British casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.MI6 have a plan to assassinate the leading maker of these weapons when he leaves his house in Iran to visit Europe. But first, they need to know when he is leaving, and where he is going.So it is that Badger finds himself on the wrong side of the Iranian border, lumbered with a partner he loathes, lying under a merciless sun in a mosquito-infested marsh, observing the house. And knowing that if they are caught, Her Majesty's Government will deny all knowledge of them.Welcome to A Deniable Death.

Book 2 - Breen and Tozer - London in the Swinging Sixties!
In Breen and Tozer's London, a battle for the soul of the city is being fought between cops and criminals, the corrupt and the corruptible.London, November 1968. Detective Sergeant Breen has a death threat in his inbox and a mutilated body on his hands. The dead man was the wayward son of a rising politician and everywhere Breen turns to investigate, he finds himself obstructed and increasingly alienated. Breen begins to see that the abuse of power is at every level of society. And when his actions endanger those at the top, he becomes their target. Out in the cold, banished from a corrupt and fracturing system, Breen is finally forced to fight fire with fire. William Shaw paints the real portrait of London's swinging sixties. Authentic, powerful and poignant, "The Kings of London" reveals the shadow beyond the spotlight and the crimes committed in the name of liberation.

Robert Muchamore x 2, Sophie McKenzie, Joan Aiken, George Monbiot,

Sophie McKenzie, Stuart Neville, Morris Gleitzman, Robert Muchamore, Chris D'Lacey,

Robert Muchamore, Warren Ellis, John Connolly, Larry Brown, Alan Bradley, 

4th Flavia De Luce book!
It's Christmastime, and the precocious Flavia de Luce - an eleven-year-old sleuth with a passion for chemistry and a penchant for crime-solving - is tucked away in her laboratory, whipping up a concoction to ensnare Saint Nick. But she is soon distracted when a film crew arrives at Buckshaw, the de Luces' decaying English estate, to shoot a movie starring the famed Phyllis Wyvern. Amid a raging blizzard, the entire village of Bishop's Lacey gathers at Buckshaw to watch Wyvern perform, yet nobody is prepared for the evening's shocking conclusion: a body found, past midnight, strangled to death with a length of film. But who among the assembled guests would stage such a chilling scene? As the storm worsens and the list of suspects grows, Flavia must use every ounce of sly wit at her disposal to ferret out a killer hidden in plain sight.

Warren Ellis - usually does graphic novels.
This morning Detective John Tallow was bored with his job.

Then there was this naked guy with a shotgun, and his partner getting killed, and now Tallow has a real problem: an apartment full of guns. Old guns. Modified guns. Arranged in rows and spirals on the floor and walls. Hundreds of them.

Each weapon is tied to a single unsolved murder. Which means Tallow has uncovered two decades' worth of homicides that no one knew to connect and a killer unlike anything that came before.
Tallow's bosses don't want him to solve the case. The murderer just wants him to die. But there's a pattern hiding behind the deaths, and if Tallow can figure it out he might even make it out alive

Larry Brown RIP!

Larry Brown's highly praised novel Dirty Work established him as one of the fiercest and most powerful new voices in Southern literature, a writer who understands the sorrows and joys of everyday life. That same compassionate regard for ordinary people shines on every page of Big Bad Love, whose heroes in these stories have a fatal weakness for beer, fast women, and pick-up trucks, and who find a kind of salvation in the reckless pursuit of love.

Stephen Fry, James Ellroy, Garry Disher, Robert Muchamore, Sam Hutton,

I swore off Ellroy after being disappointed by his last couple - but 50p - couldn't turn it down - shame it's a bloody housebrick again!
It is December 6, 1941. America stands at the brink of World War II. Last hopes for peace are shattered when Japanese squadrons bomb Pearl Harbor. Los Angeles has been a haven for loyal Japanese-Americans - but now war fever grips the city, and the Japanese internment begins. The hellish murder of a Japanese family summons three men and one woman.

William H. Parker is a captain on the Los Angeles Police. He's superbly gifted but consumed by dubious ideology. He is bitterly at odds with Sergeant Dudley Smith - ex-IRA killer, fledgling war profiteer.

Kay Lake is a 21-year-old dilettante looking for adventure. Hideo Ashida is a police chemist and the only Japanese on the payroll. The investigation throws them together and rips them apart.


7th Wyatt book from Garry Disher!
Garry Disher's cool, enigmatic anti-hero Wyatt has a job--a jewel heist. The kind Wyatt likes. Nothing extravagant, nothing greedy. Stake out the international courier, one Alain Le Page, hold up the goods in transit and get away fast.

Wyatt prefers to work alone, but this is Eddie Oberin's job. Eddie's very smart ex-wife Lydia has the inside information. Add Wyatt's planning genius and meticulous preparation, and what could possibly go wrong?

Plenty. And when you wrong Wyatt, you don't get to just walk away.

Taut plots, brilliant writing and relentless pace; plus an unforgettable cast, including the ever-elusive Wyatt himself: these are the hallmarks of Garry Disher's Wyatt series.

Justin Halpern, Dick Francis, Joan Aiken, Tom Robbins, Anne Fine

Great cover - I hope its better then B is for Beer!
One of Robbins most popular novels, this is a sort of love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problem of redheads.

Hmm....probably not then....

Dick Francis x 4, Jakob Arjouni,

Jo Nesbo, Dick Francis x 4,

Plenty of Dick this week!
The catastrophic power of a giant hurricane can raise coastal waves 30 feet high and blow through houses at amazing speeds. When meteorologist Perry Stuart goes on a hurricane-chasing ride in the Caribbean, he learns about more than wind speed.

German author - Jakob Arjouni!
To rescue a kidnapped prostitute, Kemal Kayankaya must face some of Germany's most depraved and dangerous criminals. Fortunately, some of them are his friends...

Love is never easy - especially when your girlfriend is an illegal Thai prostitute who has been kidnapped (again) by a gang of sex traffickers. Fortunately for the hapless fiancee, wisecracking gumshoe Kemal Kayankaya is on the case. The son of a Turkish garbage collector, he knows a thing or two about living in the ethnic fringes of the ugliest German city of them all: Frankfurt.

Kayankaya plunges into the city's underbelly, where the police don't care if you live or die, and the powerful view an illegal alien as just another paycheck. One Man, One Murder populates its pages with unforgettable characters, whip-smart dialogue, and a connoisseur's collection of grim details. But it is Arjouni's dead-on description of contemporary Europe's racial politics, vacuous nationalism, and social injustice that make his novels rise above the rest.

John Harvey, Donald Westlake, Gerald Seymour, James Herbert, Tom Sharpe, 

Donald Westlake!
From the Grand Master of Mystery comes the latest novel featuring the ever- lovable but hapless crook John Dortmunder.

The con is on. The mark is Monroe Hall, a corrupt CEO who lavished more of his company's money on himself than the boys at Enron and WorldCom combined. The loot? A fleet of vintage automobiles that would leave the Sultan of Brunei blushing. The catch? Trying to outsmart a collection of angry union men who've been taken for a ride and blue-blooded suckers who've been taken for their family fortunes. But if Dortmunder and his merry band of crooks are to drive off with the loot, they'll have to act fast-before they get caught in a deadly crossfire.

Tom Sharpe - 70s satire!
Kommandant van Heerden, the chief of police of Piemburg, terrorizes true Englishmen and even truer Zulus in his search for a perfect South Africa, while Luitenant Verkramp and Dr. von Blimenstein try to use aversion therapy to enforce chastity.

Jim Thompson, Jo Nesbo, Kjell Eriksson, Tonino Benacquista, Anthony Borudain, 

French crime!
"Breathless pace. Touches effortlessly on identity, love, alcohol, and the cynicism of the business world."-Les Echos

Who hasn't wanted to become "someone else"? Over a drink in Paris, two men give each other three years to see which one can more radically alter his life. Blin becomes a private detective. He takes on a new identity, even a surgically altered face. Gredzinski, a self-effacing corporate executive, discovers liquor that evening and rapidly yields to the sensuality and self-confidence induced by alcoholism. Things get complicated when Blin is hired by an ex-lover to find himself and when Gredzinski secretly follows his girlfriend to her home. A helter-skelter tale of humor and suspense.

Winner of the literary prize RTL-Lire.

Kjell Eriksson - Swedish crime series
A Swedish county commissioner walks out of a high-level meeting and disappears. Many years later, one of the town's natives is convinced that he's caught a glimpse of the missing man while traveling in Bangalore, India. When the rumors reach his hometown, a veteran police officer stumbles across a seemingly unrelated case. Ann Lindell, Eriksson's series detective, must investigate a severed female foot found where a striking number of inhabitants are single men. But the owner of the house where the victim believed to have lived is no longer able to answer any questions.

Tub 77 put to bed!

HIGHLIGHTS... Larry, Brown, Garry Disher, Tonino Benacquista, William Shaw, Donald Westlake, Stuart Neville, 

LOWLIGHTS..... 13 YA/Children's books that somehow got mixed up with mine! Patricia Highsmith,

FULL LIST OF 50 AS FOLLOWS:
AUTHOR TITLE YEAR SERIES
AIKEN JOAN THE WOLVES OF WILLOUGHBY CHASE 1962 WOWC1
AIKEN JOAN NIGHT BIRDS ON NANTUCKET 1966 WOWC3
ARJOUNI JAKOB ONE MAN, ONE MURDER 1996
BENACQUISTA TONINO SOMEONE ELSE 2005
BOURDAIN ANTHONY KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL 2000
BRADLEY ALAN I AM HALF-SICK OF SHADOWS 2011 FDLM4
BROWN LARRY BIG BAD LOVE 1990
CONNOLLY JOHN THE BLACK ANGEL 2005 CP5
DISHER GARRY WYATT 2010 W7
D'LACEY CHRIS THE SALT PIRATES OF SKEGNESS 2002
DWYER/FLYNN JIM/KEVIN 102 MINUTES 2005
ELLIS WARREN GUN MACHINE 2013
ELLROY JAMES PERFIDIA 2014
ERIKSSON KJELL THE HAND THAT TREMBLES 2011 AL4
FINE ANNE BAD DREAMS 2000
FRANCIS DICK TO THE HILT 1996
FRANCIS DICK FIELD OF 13 1998
FRANCIS DICK 10LB PENALTY 1997
FRANCIS DICK SECOND WIND 1999
FRANCIS DICK THE EDGE 1988
FRANCIS DICK REFLEX 1980
FRANCIS DICK DECIDER 1993
FRANCIS DICK SHATTERED 2000
FRANCIS DICK COMEBACK 1991
FRY STEPHEN STEPHEN FRY IN AMERICA 2008
GLEITZMAN MORRIS THEN 2008 F+G2
HALPERN JUSTIN SH*T MY DAD SAYS 2010
HARVEY JOHN GONE TO GROUND 2007 WG+HW1
HERBERT JAMES NOBODY TRUE 2003
HIGHSMITH PATRICIA THOSE WHO WALK AWAY 1967
HUTTON SAM SPECIAL AGENTS: DEEP END 2005 SA1
McKENZIE SOPHIE GIRL, MISSING 2006 GM1
McKENZIE SOPHIE HUNTED 2011 MP4
MONBIOT GEORGE BRING ON THE APOCALYPSE: 6 ARGUMENTS FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE 2008
MUCHAMORE ROBERT THE RECRUIT 2004 C1
MUCHAMORE ROBERT MAN VS. BEAST 2006 C6
MUCHAMORE ROBERT DIVINE MADNESS 2006 C5
MUCHAMORE ROBERT THE FALL 2007 C7
MUCHAMORE ROBERT SHADOW WAVE 2010 C12
NELSCOTT KRIS THIN WALLS 2002 SD3
NESBO JO THE REDEEMER 2009 HH6
NESBO JO THE REDBREAST  2006 HH3
NEVILLE STUART STOLEN SOULS 2011 JLI3
ROBBINS TOM STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER 1980
SEYMOUR GERALD A DENIABLE DEATH 2011
SEYMOUR GERALD KINGFISHER 1977
SHARPE TOM INDECENT EXPOSURE 1973
SHAW WILLIAM A HOUSE OF KNIVES 2014 B+T2
THOMPSON JIM NOW AND ON EARTH 1942
WESTLAKE DONALD THE ROAD TO RUIN 2004 D11

10 comments:

  1. Westlake, Francis, Ellroy, Benacquista... you've got some find reads ahead of you, Col!

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    1. Agreed Margot - just need to find some more time!

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  2. Col, I was a big fan of Tom Sharpe's WILT series in college. I recently managed to buy a few of his paperbacks and plan to read them (again), although the one book I haven't read yet is PORTERHOUSE BLUE.

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    1. Prashant, I've only read one Sharpe book so far - not a WILT. An okay read but not amazing, so I haven't hurried back to him.

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  3. Very varied selection there. I too have an Ellroy lying around as yet unread, can't remember its title. And Robert Muchamore was a great favourite of my son...

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    1. I think this is the only Ellroy I haven't yet read. I wonder if I'd get anything out of Muchamore reading as an adult?

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  4. Col – I see you’ve got Tony Bourdain’s KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL in this roundup. I read it soon after it came out and found it mostly hilarious, if a little gross. (Does anyone really want to know what goes on in a restaurant kitchen?) Bourdain has had several TV shows, his most recent gig is on CNN, in which he travels the world, visiting exotic places and eating local foods – which at times are very strange and hard to look at - and his comments are usually very funny. As you can tell, I am a fan of this celebrity chef. He also wrote several mysteries with a chef as sleuth.

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    1. I crossed paths with his mysteries before I saw this one about some of his time as a chef. GONE BAMBOO was superb. I've seen him on the TV over here - he was a judge in some cooking competition programme last year. He's an interesting guy.

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  5. I have GUN MACHINE by Ellis. Also KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL and GONE BAMBOO by Bourdain. Haven't read any of those yet. Have read REDBREAST by Nesbo, and liked it a lot. I read a lot of Dick Francis books years ago and I have a few still in my stacks.

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    1. I read something by Ellis before and wasn't blown away by it, but thought I'd have another go. I hope you enjoy both of Bourdain's books. Nesbo - I haven't read too much by. Ditto Dick Francis.

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