Books for Christmas - R. N. (Roger) Morris

Now it's time for R. N. (Roger) Morris, author of Porfiry Petrovich's next adventure in A Gentle Axe to select his Christmas pick and here it is:

"Like many others, I was impressed by Peter Temple’s The Broken Shore. The voice is both brutal and lyrical and he writes with a terse precision that at times almost incapacitated me with envy. I also liked the poodles and the distinctly Australian swearin.

But ideally a great Christmas book would be a great read that also happens to be set at Christmas. Brian McGilloway’s Borderlands fulfils both criteria splendidly. There’s an extra dimension of seasonal pleasure that comes from realising that however bad your own yuletide mishaps – fairy-lights not working, turkey a bit burnt on one side – they don’t come close to the unstoppable hell on wheels that is Garda Inspector Benedict Devlin’s Christmas.

It doesn’t surprise me that McGilloway is a fan of James Lee Burke (whose Pegasus Descending provided another highlight of my crime-reading year). McGilloway’s Devlin, like Burke’s Robicheaux, is given a convincing home life, which far from detracting from the twists and excitement of the murder case, adds a thematic counterpoint, as well as a psychological and moral point. In McGilloway’s concern for the domestic we understand what drives Devlin to pit himself against the forces of chaos beyond his front door."

[The link relates to the HB, but the book picture relates to the PB that is due out in April 2008.  As this is a Christmas Books post, I suggest you might prefer to follow the HB link, and a rather delightful production from Macmillan New Writing it is too...]