A quick round-up of recent audiobook ‘reads’, with thanks to Audible UK for the review credits (except for the first reviewed, which I borrow from the Toronto Public Library). I’ve kept the reviews very short on purpose. I’ll try to keep on top of these reviews in a more timely manner in the future.
Featuring: Philip Delves-Broughton, Irin Carmon, Jessi Klein, Shana Knizhnik, Antonio Garcia Martinez, Randall Munroe, Nick Offerman, Richard Porter, Amy Schumer Continue reading
Ok, The Last Bookaneer is already out. But the paperback is published by Penguin in April, and I wanted an excuse to share the cover, which I rather like. Matthew Pearl‘s novels always look interesting, but for some reason I’ve never got around to reading one. Here’s the synopsis for his latest:
book′a-neer′ (bŏŏk′kȧ-nēr′), n. a literary pirate; an individual capable of doing all that must be done in the universe of books that publishers, authors, and readers must not have a part in
London, 1890 — Pen Davenport is the most infamous bookaneer in Europe. A master of disguise, he makes his living stalking harbors, coffeehouses, and print shops for the latest manuscript to steal. But this golden age of publishing is on the verge of collapse. For a hundred years, loose copyright laws and a hungry reading public created a unique opportunity: books could easily be published abroad without an author’s permission. Authors gained fame but suffered financially—Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, to name a few — but publishers reaped enormous profits while readers bought books inexpensively. Yet on the eve of the twentieth century, a new international treaty is signed to grind this literary underground to a sharp halt. The bookaneers are on the verge of extinction.
The astonishing story of these literary thieves’ epic final heist. On the island of Samoa, a dying Robert Louis Stevenson labors over a new novel. The thought of one last book from the great author fires the imaginations of the bookaneers, and soon Davenport sets out for the South Pacific accompanied by his assistant Fergins. But Davenport is hardly the only bookaneer with a mind to pirate Stevenson’s last novel. His longtime adversary, the monstrous Belial, appears on the island, and soon Davenport, Fergins, and Belial find themselves embroiled in a conflict larger, perhaps, than literature itself.
Matthew Pearl is also the author of The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow, The Last Dickens, The Professor’s Assassin and The Technologists.
The Ghostman returns, to save his mentor…
I work alone.
I may be the best thief in the world but no one will ever know a single thing about me. Well, almost no one.
A lifetime ago I had a mentor, Angela. She taught me how to be a criminal, how to run a heist.
And now, six years after she vanished and left me high and dry on a job in Kuala Lumpur, she’s sent me an SOS.
Or at least I think it’s her. If it is, then I’ve got to go. I owe her that much.
So soon I’ll be on a plane to Macau, either to see a friend or walk into a trap. Or both.
But that’s the way I like it. Sometimes the only thing that makes me happy is risking my life.
Time to go.
I very much enjoyed Roger Hobbs’s debut, Ghostman: it was fast-paced, entertaining and offered an interesting twist on the international, high-tech thief genre. In this sequel, Hobbs gives readers more of the same. For the main, this is a very good thing, and I blitzed through Vanishing Games. Continue reading
Featuring: David Annandale, Jo Baker, Mishell Baker, David Baldacci, Elizabeth Bonesteel, Pierce Brown, Christopher Charles, Jessica Chiarella, Dan Cluchey, Max Allan Collins, John Connolly, Don DeLillo, S.B. Divya, Rachel Dunne, Mark Andrew Ferguson, Hadley Freeman, S.L. Grey, Lauren Groff, A.J. Hartley, Noah Hawley, Katie Heaney, Patrick Hemstreet, Mitchell Hogan, Lee Kelly, Shane Kuhn, Joe R. Lansdale, John Lansdale, Tim Lebbon, David Levien, Brian McClellan, Claire North, Willow Palecek, K.J. Parker, Bryony Pearce, Victor Pelevin, Molly Prentiss, Andy Remic, William Shatner, Mickey Spillane, Jo Spurrier, Allen Steele, Stuart Stevens, Alex Stewart, Jack Sutherland, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Marc Turner, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Teddy Wayne
Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Jacey Bedford?
I’m a British writer who qualified as a librarian and then spent twenty years as a full-time folk singer touring the world with vocal trio Artisan. Since the band retired from the road I’ve become a booking agent, fixing music tours for other performers. I work from home and split my time between my music business and my writing. I’ve sold short stories to anthologies and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic. My first two novels for DAW, Empire of Dust and Crossways, both science fiction, came out in 2014 and 2015 respectively and Winterwood, my first historical fantasy, comes out in February 2016. Continue reading
The Devil’s Detective, Simon Kurt Unsworth‘s debut novel, was a deliciously dark take on Heaven-and-Hell. Specifically, it focused on Fool, one of Hell’s Information Men — what passes for a detective in a place where the most brutal and depraved of crimes is everyday life. I thought it was an excellent, twisted and gripping thriller. This year, Fool returns in the sequel, The Devil’s Evidence. Here’s the synopsis:
Hell is burning out of control. Thomas Fool, Hell’s first Information Man tasked with investigating the endless stream of violence in Hell, has been promoted to the head of the newly expanded Information Office. Now in command of a legion of Information Men, his new position finds him hated by demons and almost revered by humans. He alone has survived the wrath of demon and angel alike, but he stands alone and at the center of a brewing crisis. New on the scene is the Evidence, a shadowy department whose officers do not investigate; they punish and spread fear. And its leader, Mr. Tap, is gunning for Fool.
Fool is ordered to accompany a political delegation to Heaven, and his arrival coincides with an impossible — and sinister — discovery. A dead body. Murder in Heaven. Violence, corruption, and fear are the currency of Hell, and how does one investigate a crime where these concepts are paradoxes? As the bodies pile up, Fool sees disturbing connections between Heaven and Hell. He must follow clues in a strange land where nothing is as it seems and danger can present itself in any form.
What follows is a phantasmagoric, mind-bending thriller as exciting and unsettling as anything in recent fiction. The Devil’s Evidence is an electrifying, provocative novel filled with stunning set pieces and characters who will live on in your deepest nightmares.
The Devil’s Evidence is published on July 5th in the US, by Doubleday; and on October 6th in the UK, by Del Rey. The Devil’s Detective is also published by Doubleday and Del Rey UK, and is out this month in paperback. Here are the covers:
Jack Grimwood is a pseudonym for Jon Courtenay Grimwood, the extremely talented author of, among others, The Fallen Blade, End of the World Blues and The Last Banquet. Now, he adds Moskva, a serial killer thriller set in Cold War Moscow. Here’s the synopsis:
Christmas Eve, 1985. The shaved, exsanguinated body of a young man is found in Red Square, frozen solid — like marble to the touch — missing the little finger of his right hand.
A week later, Alex Masterton, the 15-year-old stepdaughter of the British ambassador, goes missing. Army Intelligence officer, Tom Fox, posted to Moscow, is asked to help find her. It’s a shot at redemption.
Fox’s investigation drags him ever deeper towards the dark heart of a Soviet establishment determined to protect its own…
Moskva is due to be published by Michael Joseph/Penguin, on May 6th, 2016. It looks fantastic, and I can’t wait to read it.
Also on CR: Interview with Jon Courtenay Grimwood; Guest Posts on “We Know Goblins Don’t Exist” and group-post “Should You Write What You Read?”; Review of The Fallen Blade
A fantastic, must-read new thriller series
Sarah Reese, the teenage daughter of a powerful Washington, D.C. judge, is dead, her body discovered in a slum in the shadow of the Capitol. Though the police promptly arrest three local black kids, newspaper reporter Sully Carter suspects there’s more to the case. Reese’s slaying might be related to a string of cold cases the police barely investigated, among them the recent disappearance of a gorgeous university student.
A journalist brought home from war-torn Bosnia and hobbled by loss, rage, and alcohol, Sully encounters a city rife with its own brand of treachery and intrigue. Weaving through D.C.’s broad avenues and shady backstreets on his Ducati 916 motorcycle, Sully comes to know not just the city’s pristine monuments of power but the blighted neighborhoods beyond the reach of the Metro. With the city clamoring for a conviction, Sully pursues the truth about the murders — all against pressure from government officials, police brass, suspicious locals, and even his own bosses at the paper.
A wry, street-smart hero with a serious authority problem, Sully delves into a deeply layered mystery, revealing vivid portraits of the nation’s capital from the highest corridors of power to D.C.’s seedy underbelly, where violence and corruption reign supreme — and where Sully must confront the back-breaking line between what you think and what you know, and what you know and what you can print. Inspired by the real-life 1990s Princeton Place murders and set in the last glory days of the American newspaper, The Ways of the Dead is a wickedly entertaining story of race, crime, the law, and the power of the media. Neely Tucker delivers a flawless rendering of a fast-paced, scoop-driven newsroom — investigative journalism at its grittiest.
It’s taken me a while to finally get around to reading this series, despite buying The Ways of the Dead on the day of its UK release last year. Nevertheless, with the recent publication of Murder, D.C., I decided it was time to give it a try — and I’m really glad that I did. I read both of these novels back-to-back, and in a handful of blissful days of reading. Both of these novels are fantastic — brilliantly written, plotted and paced, they are easily two of the best crime novels I’ve read in quite a few years. Continue reading
A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the wildly successful and beloved Back to the Future trilogy, just in time for the 30th anniversary
Long before Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled through time in a flying DeLorean, director Robert Zemeckis, and his friend and writing partner Bob Gale, worked tirelessly to break into the industry with a hit. During their journey to realize their dream, they encountered unprecedented challenges and regularly took the difficult way out.
For the first time ever, the story of how these two young filmmakers struck lightning is being told by those who witnessed it. We Don’t Need Roads includes original interviews with Zemeckis, Gale, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Huey Lewis, and over fifty others who contributed to one of the most popular and profitable film trilogies of all time.
With a focus not only on the movies, but also the lasting impact of the franchise and its fandom, We Don’t Need Roads is the ultimate read for anyone who has ever wanted to ride a Hoverboard, hang from the top of a clock tower, travel through the space-time continuum, or find out what really happened to Eric Stoltz after the first six weeks of filming. So, why don’t you make like a tree and get outta here – and start reading! We Don’t Need Roads is your density.
It’s always difficult writing reviews of histories like this (or many others), as one’s interest in the subject can often result in over-long recitations of what the author covers — thereby potentially negating the need for others to read it for themselves. That could very easily be the case with this book: there are so many great moments herein. Therefore, I’m going to keep this very short. First of all, We Don’t Need Roads is a very good book — it’s witty, exhaustive (despite its slim length), engaging, and clearly written from a place of affection. This is a must read for any fan of the franchise. Continue reading
A publishing industry whodunnit?
When a glamorous literary agent falls prey to a violent stalker, she discovers that the publishing biz can really be murder…
Jo Donovan always manages to come out on top. Originally from the backwoods of Appalachia, she forged a hard path to elegant lunches and parties among New York City’s literati. At thirty-five, she’s the widow of the renowned novelist (and notorious playboy) Hugo Donovan, the owner of one of the best literary agencies in town, and is one of the most sought-after agents in the business. But all this is about to fall apart, as a would-be client turns stalker, a hack shops around a proposal for an unauthorized tell-all biography of Hugo, and a handsome old flame shows up without warning.
Both a seasoned author and a former literary agent herself, Barbara Rogan knows the publishing world from all angles. Fans of Lisa Lutz and Jaqueline Winspear will adore Jo Donovan and Rogan’s wickedly sharp tale that skewers the dangerous fictions we read—and the dangerous fictions we tell ourselves.
This was a pretty interesting novel. I first heard about it years ago, but only recently picked it up at the Strand Bookstore, in New York (easily one of the most overwhelmingly magical places on the planet…). A Dangerous Fiction is a well-written, interesting novel. There was one main weakness, but I nevertheless enjoyed reading it. It’s a must for anyone interested in publishing, too. Continue reading
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