JUNE 2018 - READING LIST AND PICK OF THE MONTH

Last month was a much better reading month than the previous two. I was hoping for double digit reading figures but nine's not so bad.

The stand-out read and pick of the month was Preston Lang's Sunk Costs - Lang's one of my favourite authors.

The full list is.......

Graham Smith - When the Waters Recede (2018) (4)

Dale Brendan Hyde - The Ink Run (2018) (3)

Andrew Barrett - The Lift (2015) (4)

John Mead - The Hanging Women (2018) (4)

Ann Girdharry - Chilling Tales of the Unexpected (2018) (4)

Cornell Woolrich - Four Novellas of Fear (2010) (4.5)

Preston Lang - Sunk Costs (2018) (5)

Andrew Barrett - The Note (2017) (4)

J.A. Marley - Godsend (2018) (4)


More trivia for my own amusement ....

1 - 4.5 STAR read - Cornell Woolrich with some entertaining 30s written tales.

6 of the 9 were 4 STAR reads and very enjoyable

1 - 3 STAR read - Dale Brendan Hyde's The Ink Run - which had its moments.

9 reads from 8 different authors,

6 of the 8 were new-to-me authors, Andrew Barrett, Dale Brendan Hyde, John Mead, Ann Girdharry, J.A. Marley and Cornell Woolrich - I have more on the pile from Woolrich, Girdharry, Marley and Barrett which I look forward to.

Graham Smith and Preston Lang have been enjoyed before with more to come in the future.

Gender analysis -  7 male authors, 1 female - shocking but no big surprise. I keep deferring my all female reading month.

8 authors read, 4 are English, 2 hail from the US, 1 from Scotland and 1 from Northern Ireland - I think.

All 9 of the reads were fiction - 5 novels - 2 collections of novellas or long short stories and a couple of long stories on their own.

All of the books were published in this decade ....6 from 2018, 1 from 2017, 1 from 2015 - 1 from 2010, though the 2010 collection had previously all been published as separate pieces in the late 30s and 1940.


Two of the reads were pre-owned. Of the other seven - one came from the author and six from publicists/publishers, five of them for participation in blog tours, though I only made the deadline for four of them.


Favourite cover? Cornell Woolrich's Four Novellas of Fear

Second favourite – Graham Smith - When the Waters Recede

My reads were this long 260 - 416 - 51 - 248 - 98 - 192 - 206 - 51 - 294

Total page count = 1816 (533 in May)....... a near 1300 page increase

5 were Kindle reads, and 4 were paperbacks


0 < 50,
3 between 51 < 100,
1 between 101 < 200,
4 between 201 < 300,
0 between 301 < 400,
1  > 400 pages

Dale Brendan Hyde's The Ink Run was the longest read at 416 pages

Andrew Barrett's The Lift and The Note were both equal shortest at 51 pages each

2 BY GARY PHILLIPS

A couple this week from LA author, Gary Phillips.  I've read him previously but not for a few years now.





















My last time with his work, was an edited anthology of short stories based around one of his character creations - Hollis PI 

There's an author biography for Phillips on the Goodreads site......

GARY PHILLIPS lives in Los Angeles and is best known for his novels and short stories featuring PI Ivan Monk. He has worked a lot of different gigs in his time: a graveyard shift security guard, a printer, a union organizer, co-director of the MultiCultural Collaborative (a nonprofit set-up to improve race relations after the ’92 LA riots) and as political director of a city council campaign. He writes on politics and pop culture for such as the Los Angeles Times, LA Watts Times, Rap Pages, the San Francisco Examiner Examiner, Freestyle and Black Scholar. He occasionally loses money at the poker table, watches his kids play sports, and finds that walking the dog is a fine excuse to light up a stogie. 

The man himself was also kind enough to suffer a few of my questions with good grace back in 2015

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WITH GARY PHILLIPS

In his portfolio there's four books plus a short story collection with series character Ivan Monk, a few with Martha Chainey as the lead and more than half a dozen standalones, plus a load of graphic novel work, which I've not gotten into.


Gary Phillips has his website here.

Perdition U.S.A (1996)

When three young black men--a petty thief, a crack dealer, and a college student--are gunned down within blocks of one another, Ivan Monk sets out to find a link between these seemingly random killings and uncovers a deadly racial conspiracy.


"It takes a certain kind of hard-boiled hero... Ivan Monk is that hero." - Walter Mosley















Bangers (2003)

On The Streets Of L.A. Us against them. That's the law of the cop world. In L.A.'s toughest 'hoods, you gotta bang with the best of the roughnecks. And the best are the five members of TRASH, an elite team of street cops unafraid to go up against the city's worst gangbangers, even if it means bending the rules, planting a piece, or looking the other way for a fellow cop.
The Most Dangerous Person Can Be A Cop...

The crime-infested Venice Heights section is a place Detective Sergeant Rafael "Saint" Santian understands. It's where he grew up, and part of him never left. But the situation is getting out of control. One of the most lethal gangs is making moves, while a politically ambitious assistant D.A. is looking to snare Saint and his men. Meanwhile hidden hands are lighting a torch that will bring up the heat, turning cop against cop as the line gets blurred between gangsta and law enforcer in a city where everyone's riding on the edge...

When three young black men--a petty thief, a crack dealer, and a college student--are gunned down within blocks of one another, Ivan Monk sets out to find a link between these seemingly random killings and uncovers a deadly racial conspiracy.

Genre: 

JUNE 2018 - ADDITIONS TO THE LIBRARY - 6 OF THE BEST!

Another half dozen from the June additions........

Dominique Manotti - Escape (2014) - purchased copy

Not someone I've previously read. Her other books sound good especially Dead Horsemeat!

It's 1987. Two prisoners, both Italian, break out of prison in a rubbish lorry. One heads for Paris, the other to Milan. The first, Carlo, is killed in a shoot-out during a bank robbery under suspicious circumstances. Frightened by the manhunt launched by Interpol, the second prisoner, Filippo, returns to Paris where he becomes a security guard. He spends his nights writing the story of a Red Brigadier, as recounted to him in prison by Carlo. His landlady Cristina finds him a publisher and the book becomes a bestseller. Filippo, carefully coached by his publishers press office, steadfastly refuses to own the story, insisting that all his stories are fiction and that this is a work of imagination. The public don t buy it, neither do the police, and dogged investigations begin to produce the reasons why. Ultimately Filippo cannot escape his fate: that of a man with an assumed identity that carries far greater risks than his own. 

CS DeWildt - Suburban Dick (2018) - purchased copy

I enjoyed The Louisville Problem a few years ago. Dead Animals still sits on the pile.

Private Dick Gus Harris isn’t paid to be nice. Problem is he isn’t paid for much of anything these days. Recently divorced, all Gus wants is a little business to keep his one-man operation afloat and a chance to be a part of his kids’ lives. So when a pair of distraught parents come calling for help locating their missing son, it appears Gus’s luck may be changing. 

As Gus investigates the boy’s disappearance, he discovers something rotten with the Horton High school wrestling team. Gus soon realizes the missing boy may not be missing at all, but rather part of an elaborate embezzlement scheme that serves to keep the team at peak performance and the college scholarships rolling in. Gus is certain that popular high school wrestling coach Geoff Hanson knows more than he’s willing to admit, but has no idea just how far the man is willing to go to keep his secrets from coming to light. 

Soon, the lines between Gus’s work and home life are blurred as he finds himself not only trying to crack the case, but also protecting the people most dear to him from Hanson’s vengeful wrath. 

Praise for SUBURBAN DICK: 

“DeWildt stands alone as a wicked wizard of crime fiction...bold, brash, and completely original.” —Tom Pitts, author of Hustle 

Donald E. Westlake - Corkscrew (2000) - purchased copy

Enjoyed him in the past, but not read a book from him for a few too many years now. I need to get back to his Richard Stark monikered Parker series.

Bryce Proctor has a contract for his next novel, a wife who is trying to extract the last pound of flesh in an ugly divorce, a fast approaching deadline and a serious case of writer's block.

Frank Bill - The Savage (2017) - purchased copy

Crimes in Southern Indiana was enjoyed. Donnybrook still waits for me.

Frank Bill's America has always been stark and violent. In his new novel, he takes things one step further: the dollar has failed; the grid is wiped out. 

Van Dorn is 18 and running solo, dodging the bloodthirsty hordes and militias that have emerged since the country went haywire. His dead father's voice rings in his head as Van Dorn sets his sights not just on survival but also on an old-fashioned system of justice. 

Meanwhile, a leader has risen among the gangs - and around him swirls the cast of brawlers from Donnybrook, with their own brutal sense of right and wrong, of loyalty and justice through strength. 

This is not the distant post-apocalyptic future - this is tomorrow, in a world Bill has already introduced us to. Now he raises the stakes and turns his shotgun prose on our addiction to technology, the values and skills we've lost in the process, and what happens when the last systems of morality and society collapse. 

The Savage presents the bone-chilling vision of an America where power is the only currency and nothing guarantees survival, and it presents Bill at his most ambitious, most eloquent, and most powerful.

Angel Luis Colon - No Happy Endings (2016) - purchased copy

An unknown quantity as yet, but his Blacky Jaguar books are primed and ready to go. Another new one from him drops soon - Pull and Pray.

Nominated for the 2017 Anthony Award for Best Novella 

Fantine Park is not the woman her mother was — she's certainly not the safecracker her mother was either. Hell, she's not much of anything useful these days. Fresh off parole after a stint in the joint for a poorly thought out casino robbery, Fantine finds herself confronted by an old partner of her mother's and right back in the thick of it.

Unfortunately, the man dragging her back to the life she left behind, one Aleksei Uryvich, is a complete bully and an idiot — content to believe he can get anything he wants with his brutish nature and the threat of a bullet for Fan's elderly father, Jae.

The score: semen. Yes, semen. Gallons of it. Particularly, the genetic man-batter from supposed Ivy Leaguers and other elite. The material nets top dollar from Asia and Aleksei is foaming at the mouth at the profit potential.

The plan: there is no real plan. Fantine has to get it out of Evensight Storage; a sperm bank situated right by the Battery Park Tunnel in Manhattan. A place barely anyone but a sad sack with an empty sack sees the inside of on a day to day basis.

There's no guarantee anyone involved in this mess is getting out alive, especially when Fantine finds herself face to face with the psychopath known as O Leiteiro — The Milkman.

Frederic Dard - The Gravedigger's Bread (2018) - review copy from publisher

Enjoyed Bird in a Cage and really need to try his other books

A claustrophobic thriller from the French master of noir

Putting dead bodies in the ground for a living could give anyone ideas... 

Blaise is out of work and down on his luck when a chance encounter with a beautiful blonde has him hooked. He'll do anything to stay by her side, even if it means working for her husband, a funeral director. But as everyone knows, three's a crowd.

Praise for Dard's thrillers:

'Worthy of Agatha Christie at her devious best... Classic French noir' Guardian

'Spellbinding' Wall Street Journal

'The wonder is that Frederic Dard's singular take on crime noir is not better known in this country' Daily Mail

Frederic Dard (1921 - 2000) was one of the best known and loved French crime writers of the twentieth century. Enormously prolific, he wrote more than three hundred thrillers, suspense stories, plays and screenplays, under a variety of noms de plume, throughout his long and illustrious career, which also saw him win the 1957 Grand prix de litterature policiere for The Executioner Weeps. Dard's Bird in a Cage, The Wicked Go to Hell, Crush, The Executioner Weeps and The King of Fools are also available or forthcoming from Pushkin Vertigo.

JUNE 2018 - FILMS + TV

There were a few bits and pieces watched in the early part of June before the World Cup took over the TV...... an okay DVD, a disappointing trip to the cinema, an amazing bit of TV, a season 2 continuation and another series embarked upon.

The Handmaid's Tale (2017)

Season two just started and my son informed us that we needed to get caught up on the first one. Sound advice - binge watched 10 episodes over three nights. Pretty bloody terrifying glimpse of a possible future.

From Google....

Based on the best-selling novel by Margaret Atwood, this series is set in Gilead, a totalitarian society in what used to be part of the United States. Gilead is ruled by a fundamentalist regime that treats women as property of the state, and is faced with environmental disasters and a plummeting birth rate. In a desperate attempt to repopulate a devastated world, the few remaining fertile women are forced into sexual servitude. One of these women, Offred, is determined to survive the terrifying world she lives in, and find the daughter that was taken from her.

The Limey (1999)

Bargain basement or charity shop DVD watched. An okay film, a bit dated. Slightly irritating that every time our crafty Londoner Terence Stamp utters a bit of Cockney Rhyming slang, me ol' China he feels the need to explain himself and translate - presumably for his American audience. What a load of Jack and Danny....

From Google....

The Limey follows Wilson (Terence Stamp), a tough English ex-con who travels to Los Angeles to avenge his daughter's death. Upon arrival, Wilson goes to task battling Valentine (Peter Fonda) and an army of L.A.'s toughest criminals, hoping to find clues and piece together what happened. After surviving a near-death beating, getting thrown from a building and being chased down a dangerous mountain road, the Englishman decides to dole out some bodily harm of his own.

Funny Cow (2017)

Cinema trip to my local library for this one and a bit disappointing if I'm honest. I do like Maxine Peake usually and Paddy Considine for that matter, but it kind of felt a bit like it was trying too hard to be relevant and cutting edge. Alun Armstrong and Stephen Graham also feature.

From Wikipedia....

Funny Cow is a 2017 comedy drama directed by Adrian Shergold, written by Tony Pitts, and starring Maxine Peake, Paddy Considine, Tony Pitts, Stephen Graham and Alun Armstrong. The original songs and score was composed by Richard Hawley with additional songs by Ollie Trevers. The film follows a woman making a name for herself in the stand-up comedy scene of working men's clubs in northern England.[2]

The film debuted on 9 October 2017 in the United Kingdom at the London Film Festival.

The Handmaid's Tale - Season 2 (2018)

More of the same, only the World Cup interrupted us after one or two episodes. Compelling viewing, I'm looking forward to getting caught up soon. Debating whether to take a punt of the book by Margaret Atwood.

From Rotten Tomatoes .....

Critics Consensus: Beautifully shot but dishearteningly relevant, The Handmaid's Tale centers its sophomore season tightly around its compelling cast of characters, making room for broader social commentary through more intimate lenses.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_handmaid_s_tale/s02/

The Sinner (2017)

A few episodes into this eight-parter and I'm enjoying it but not totally glued just yet.
My daughter watched it and enjoyed it enough to press gang me and her mum into taking a gander. Jessica Biel is pretty good, but I can't remember what I've seen her in before.

From Google.....

Young mother Cora Tannetti is overcome by an inexplicable fit of rage that leads her to commit a startling -- and very public -- act of violence, with no explanation as to why she did it. When Detective Harry Ambrose begins his investigation and grows obsessed with uncovering Cora's hidden motive, the two work together to try to get deep into her psyche to learn about the violent secrets that are hidden in her past. The eight-episode thriller -- which tries to uncover the "why" instead of the "who" or "what" -- stars Jessica Biel, who also serves as an executive producer, and Bill Pullman in the lead roles.

J.A. MARLEY - GODSEND (2018)

Synopsis/blurb....

Looking for page-turning action and well-placed suspense? Then you'll love the unmissable Godsend.

It has been eighteen months since Danny Felix pulled off the robbery of his life.  His plan brought London to a standstill, but at a heavy price.

Now, living a quiet life running a charter fishing business in the Florida Keys, Danny is trying to come to terms with the death and destruction he had unwittingly unleashed. However, the low profile is beginning to wear thin and he soon starts to crave the adrenalin rush of his former criminal ways. 
Little does he know that three very different women are about to enter his life and turn it upside-down. Soon Danny finds himself right back in the action.

But why has he been chosen? And does he have the appetite to pull off another job where the stakes are so lethally high?

A stop – start stop - start read for me having initially picked it up when in the throes of a house move. Eventually when I got back into it I quite liked it overall.

Our main man is Danny Felix and he’s living an off the grid existence in Florida. Little gifts on his doorstep inform him that his presence and location is known and that his tranquil life in the slow lane (if we ignore the ever increasing panic attacks) is at an end.

Thieves re-united, Danny is sucked back into the game and before too long is planning on taking down a bunch of holy rollers and a drug cartel (sort of with their consent) and levelling the score with Harkness, a nemesis from the London days.

Cross, double-cross, triple cross, seventy year old strippers, a sympathetic priest, an inquisitive and seductive Hispanic police officer, an evangelist with a predilection for kinky pain and some political aspirations, our holy roller’s wife June, who offers more than just the missionary position, Harkness – a reluctant partner, but with trouble brewing between them on the horizon, a trusted Irish lieutenant, an alluring but dangerous drug boss, money laundering, skimming, fishing, BBQ,  confession, anxiety, romance, secrets, sex, dancing, ambition, friendship, guns, a kidnap, a heist, lunchtimes with happy endings, past history and a final reckoning.

Fast-paced once I let the book rip. Lots of angles being played and deception not too far from the surface. The book continually refers back to earlier events in the author’s previous work Standstill which introduced Danny Felix. I wouldn’t say not having read Standstill was a hindrance to my enjoyment, but it may have somewhat spoiled things for me if I do eventually read the series ass-backwards.

Decent characters, dialogue and action, with plenty of humour and banter – it’s not a book that takes itself too seriously. It’s not without a few darker moments though as the story unfolds and approaches the climax. I like reading about robberies and scams more than murder and this offered plenty by way of entertainment. The Florida setting was another plus. If there’s a third Danny Felix book on the horizon – deal me in.

4 from 5

J.A. Marley has his website here.

Read across April, May and June, 2018
Published – 2018
Page count – 294
Source – review copy from Bloodhound Books
Format - Kindle

THE SWEDISH SIX

Another Scandinavian half dozen that were acquired then buried....

Six from Sweden from Mari Jungstedt, Johan Theorin, Anders De La Motte, Peter Wahloo, Hakan Nesser and Hans Koppel

Peter Wahloo - The Lorry (1962)

I've read the first in the Martin Beck series and saw this one which is half of the double act on their own. It sounds quite interesting, but I've not read it yet.

From Per Wahloo - co-author with his wife, Maj Sjowall, of the internationally bestselling Martin Beck series of mysteries - comes a suspense novel about a former German soldier wanted for questioning about a murder in Spain.

Willi Mohr--former German soldier, starving artist, enigmatic drifter--is arrested by the police and subjected to a lengthy and perplexing interrogation. Unwillingly, he is drawn back to the previous year he spent in Spain, the mysterious death of a Norwegian couple he shared a house with and his tireless attempts to discover how they died. As the interrogation intensifies, Mohr realizes that his own secret activities have implicated him in a dangerous political situation. Exhausted, at the end of his money, worn down by the police, he takes decisive action that leads to a profound personal release.

Hans Koppel - She's Never Coming Back (2011)

Speculative punt - I quite liked the sound of it, but haven't cracked its spine.

Mike Zetterberg lives with his wife Ylva and their daughter in a house just outside Helsingborg. One evening, Ylva isn't home as expected after work. Mike passes it off as a drink with a work friend, but when she's still missing the next day, he starts to worry. As Mike battles suspicion from the police and his own despair, he is unaware that Ylva is still alive, just a stone's throw from his own home. Ylva has been drawn into a twisted plot of revenge and tragedy that leads back into her and her abductors' shared past...

Mari Jungstedt - Unspoken (2007)

Years ago (2011) I read something else by her which I liked - Unseen. Worth having a second look at her work IMO.

It is winter on Gotland, and fourteen-year-old Fanny is missing. She had no friends to speak of other than the horses she took care of at the local racing stable, and seems to have been an unhappy and isolated teenager, the daughter of an absent Jamaican musician and an instable Swedish mother. Is her disappearance somehow connected to the recent brutal murder of alcoholic photographer Henry Dahlström, who had won a large sum of money at the racetrack right before his death? Inspector Anders Knutas and his team investigate under pressure from the media. 

Fanny is finally found, strangled to death and left on a lonely heath, covered by moss and branches. At the same time, grainy but explicit photographs of the girl with a stranger are discovered, hidden in Dahlström's darkroom. Intrepid TV journalist Johan Berg, sent from Stockholm to cover the two deaths, pushes the investigation one decisive step ahead while still trying to resolve his relationship with Emma, which has been simmering since they first met during the investigation into a series of murders on Gotland this past summer. 

All evidence points to one of Fanny's coworkers at the stable, an American who has left the country for a short vacation. As Knutas and his team wait for his return to make the arrest, the inspector takes a well-deserved weekend off with an old friend, and at the lonely cottage in the woods, the pieces finally fit together. But this time, Knutas has gotten too close. . . .

Anders De La Motte - Game (2012)

My wife read and enjoyed this without feeling an overwhelming urge to get to the next in the trilogy. Hopefully it doesn't have a cliffhanger ending, which will probably piss me off if it does. I can't help but think of Keith Lemon and Celebrity Juice whenever I see this author's name.


"A taut thriller that will leave the reader excited for the next book in the series" (Kirkus Reviews) - the first novel in a groundbreaking international thriller trilogy about a deadly game that blurs the line between reality and fiction.

One Sunday morning after a long night of partying, Henrik "HP" Pettersson, a slacker with a lot of ego and very little impulse control, finds a cell phone of an unfamiliar make on a commuter train. Through insisting and slightly unnerving messages that refer to him by name, the phone invites him to play a game. HP accepts without hesitation.

The rules are that HP must complete tasks that range from childish pranks to criminal acts, as allocated by the mysterious Game Master. The Game starts out innocently enough and then becomes increasingly risky, threatening the safety of someone close to HP. He is determined to become a superstar, but when the dark and tragic secrets of his family's past are at stake, HP must make a choice. Will he suffer the humiliation of defeat, or will the need to win push him to the limit - no matter the cost?

The first novel in a fast-paced and riveting trilogy, Game will leave you guessing. Follow the rules, and everybody gets hurt...

Johan Theorin - The Darkest Room (2009)

Another author I know next to nothing about and who I have never read.

It is bitter mid-winter on the Swedish island of Oland, and Katrine and Joakim Westin have moved with their children to the boarded-up manor house at Eel Point. But their remote idyll is soon shattered when Katrine is found drowned off the rocks nearby. And the old house begins to exert a strange hold over him.

Hakan Nesser - The Mind's Eye (2008)

A few people whose views I respect rate this series. I bought a few and never got around to the. Pretty much the story of my reading life.,

The highly anticipated first novel in the Inspector Van Veeteren series in now available in English. At last, American readers will be able to enjoy, from its very beginnings, this addictive series by one of Europe's most beloved and best-selling crime writers.

Chief Inspector Van Veeteren knew that murder cases were never as open-and-shut as this one: Janek Mitter woke one morning with a brutal hangover and discovered his wife of three months lying facedown in the bathtub, dead. With only the flimsiest excuse as his defense, he is found guilty of a drunken crime of passion and imprisoned in a mental institution.

But Van Veeteren's suspicions about the identity of the killer are borne out when Mitter also becomes a murder victim. Now the chief inspector launches a full-scale investigation of the two slayings. But it may only be the unspoken secrets of the dead'"revealed in a mysterious letter that Mitter wrote shortly before his death'"that will finally allow Van Veeteren to unmask the killer and expose the shocking root of this sordid violence.

2 BY STEPHEN GREENLEAF

Wind back Wednesday and another couple of books from nearly 40 years ago and author Stephen Greenleaf.

They're a couple of PI novels from San Francisco in the late 70s, early 80s. I’ve enjoyed more than a few from another San Franciscan PI series – Bill Pronzini's Nameless, so I’ll be interested to see if Greenleaf and Tanner give him a run for his money.

There’s 14 books in the series in total, with Ellipsis the last one published in 2000. Greenleaf also has a handful of non-series books to his name.

There's an interesting article on the series over on The Thrilling Detective Web Site .....

Death Bed, in particular, has always struck me as one of the most powerful P.I. novels I've read, and the murderer's M.O. is one of the nastiest imaginable.

Grave Error (1979)

The first novel in Stephen Greenleaf's classic series featuring John Marshall Tanner, San Francisco ex-lawyer turned private detective.

When her husband begins acting strangely, the wife of a famous legal crusader hires San Francisco P.I. John Marshall Tanner to find out why. Tanner is convinced the case is a simple matter of blackmail. Certainly a man like Roland Nelson has made his share of powerful enemies in a career devoted to exposing fraud and corruption among the mighty.

But Tanner's investigation soon takes a tragic and personal turn. Suddenly Tanner finds himself on a trail of buried secrets, frustrated passions, and smoldering revenge as he races to stop a killer.

Death Bed (1980) 

Hired by dying millionaire Maximillian Kottle to locate Kottle's estranged son, San Francisco private eye John Marshall Tanner begins a quest to locate the former sixties radical who is also wanted for murder