IT'S A CRIME! (OR A MYSTERY...)

Other books for Christmas: non-crime

For foodies:

Having previously enjoyed Nigel Slater's Toast (The Story of a Boy's Hunger), I keenly picked up Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table.  This is a book of the same style as Toast, it's Nigel Slater reminiscing about food as well as commenting on today's eating habits.  The book is essentially a series of random vignettes with headings such as Oxo Cubes; The Midnight Feast; The Tight-Arse Cook; Tipping, as Only the Brits Know How; Pre-Jamie Man; Post-Jamie Man; Colman's Mustard.  Here's a sample from The Extravagant Cook:

"... Men tend to show off in food shops in a way women don't.  Two men, finding themselves at the deli counter at the same time, will act as if they are side by side at the traffic lights, each one revving up while surreptitiously eyeing the other's vehicle (in this case the BMW and the Audi have been temporarily swapped for wire baskets).

"... A dinner party with the extravagant shopper is a non-stop exhibition of ego-cooking.  The best ingredients, the flashiest recipes and, actually, quite sound cooking, albeit done on a cooker that wouldn't look out of place at Gordon Ramsay's.  It's the culinary equivalent of driving a Porsche Cayenne."

Food and humour are always good and Slater does not disappoint.

For pure torrent-of-tear inducing laughter:

Must Try Harder!: The Very Worst Howlers by Schoolchildren pulls together a selection of slippery slip ups made by schoolchildren when writing.  Norman McGreevy, a school teacher has compiled this very funny collection.

I came across this book when picking up the Daily Mail in my mother's hospital ward: they had excerpts from it in a feature.  I started to read them out.  My mother and I were in stitches, tears running down our cheeks.  And then the other ladies in the ward started listening, so we caused a bit of light and merry disruption.  It just might be that this book is of more use than your average painkiller.  Here are some examples:

"While rowing up river I slumped over the whores in a state of physical exhaustion."

"Adolescence is the stage between puberty and adultery."

"If you cross XY and XX chromosones, you get XX (female), YY (male) and XY (undecided)."

"Louis XVI was gelatined to death."

"When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted, 'hurrah'.  Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo."

"The wife of a duke is a dukky."

"All the crew were taken into custardy."

"A consonant is a large piece of land surrounded by water."

And finally one for the wonderful Norm at CRIMESCRAPS:

"If teeth are not cleaned, plague is the result."

Books for Christmas - my picks & honorable mentions

2007 has been quite a year for the crime fiction reader.  We've been lucky enough to experience many début crime novels, as the new develop on what has come before.  The tried and tested takes on a new tangent with these brave authors and for that they should be commended.  Originality is always welcome, as "same old, same old" is as boring as Christmas TV repeats ("Pass the bucket, dear!").

If I really thought I could get away saying this novel is crime fiction I would make it my crime pick of the year, but as I said here, it's the hardest in the series to make the fit.

John Lawton's Second Violin, the latest in his Troy series is simply a class act.

Second Violin brings wonderful writing; evocative, realistic setting in respect to time and places across Europe; the usual mix of eccentric characters and a story bursting with intelligence.

But to consider crime fiction in its pure form, there is one novel that particularly stays in my mind this year.  And when I say "pure", I'm pushing the boat out a little here as it comes from the sub-genre of comic crime (not an easy one to make a success in).

L C Tyler's The Herring Seller's Apprentice is memorable because of its intelligent cracking comic prose, its believable and hilarious characters (especially from the world of publishing), and its ... er, nice line in red herrings.

In what has been a dark year for me for personal reasons, I read this novel at quite a pace and it provided a very welcome period of light relief, escapism and laughter.  It's the first novel I've ever read out over the phone to friends.  (Not the whole thing, just bits of it - I'm not attempting to kick start another career in the audio book world, you understand.)

Where Ethelred Tressider the writer was the protagonist in The Herring Seller's Apprentice, Elsie Thirkettle his literary agent side-kick was such a strong character with great potential for more development and storylines, I'd really love to be reading more of her in the future.  I don't think this is the route that Len Tyler is taking, but I can dream.  Whatever comes next from Len, the quality of the writing will be assured; this début did not read like one at all and its originality will have you sitting up and taking notice.

Now, for the honorable mentions:

Books for Christmas - Joanna Hines

Joanna Hines, author of crime fiction and historicals, including The Murder Bird and Surface Tension two novels I've particularly enjoyed this year, presents her pick for the season:

"It’s impossible to identify a ‘best’ crime novel for 2007 - there have been so many good ones. So I’m going to focus on one that is still fresh in my mind and which, because I read it some time after paperback publication date, I’ve been unable to review elsewhere. The Dead Hour, by Denise Mina, has been a wonderful discovery.

Glasgow in 1984 and Paddy Meehan is working the night shift for the local paper, which involves listening to the police radio and following up likely stories. She’s from a Catholic family, her father has been unemployed for four years and she is the only one of four children still living at home to be bringing in a wage. The police have been called to a ‘domestic disturbance’ and Paddy catches a brief glimpse of a frightened, battered woman before the ‘husband’ presses a fifty pound note into her hand, buying her silence. The two police on the scene, who have also been paid off, describe her as ‘only wee Meehan’. After they leave, the woman is brutally murdered. It becomes a matter of personal pride for Paddy to find who killed her.

‘Only wee Meehan’ is a wonderful protagonist. The nature of her work means that she suffers from constant sleep deprivation ‘like a fever, shifting the turn of her eye, moving everything slightly sideways’. Overweight and scruffy, she is frequently underestimated, but she has toughness, humour and integrity. Denise Mina writes brilliantly, and the story doesn’t flag for a moment. A terrific read."

Books for Christmas - Anne Brooke

Anne Brooke UK killer queen of the gay novel, crime or other, (she is making her mark in this sub-genre), seeks to bring something a little more offbeat to you this Christmas, and here we have her enthusiastic words on the matter at hand:

"Louise Welsh's The Bullet Trick is simply THE must-read crime book of your Christmas list.  William Wilson is a down-and-out conjurer who's seen better days by far, but when he's unexpectedly booked for a series of gigs in Berlin, he thinks his luck has changed.  There, amongst the shady characters and glamour girls of Berlin, he's confident of abandoning his past.  But his secrets are too powerful to let him go.

The story is utterly gripping - dark and vibrant, bleak and punchy.  With an oh-so-sympathetic anti-hero, whom you grow to love hugely through the story.  The novel successfully bridges the gap between masterful crime novel and literary tour-de-force; not only are we taken on a thrilling journey, but we are also led on a quest for redemption and, ultimately, truth.  Not only that but the ending is one of the most powerful and poignant I've read in a long, long time.  I love it when a book like this comes along - it makes my skin tingle and makes me feel truly alive.  I was devastated when I finished it, and I'm still thinking about it.  Buy it; you won't regret it!"

Click on this link to purchase The Bullet Trick, if you are persuaded.  Anne Brooke regularly blogs with staggering honesty right here.

Books for Christmas - Debi Alper

Debi Alper, author of "Nirvana Bites" and "Trading Tatiana", edgy London-based crime thriller novels, took some time out from her own family's festive celebration of Hanukkah to offer up her "best read for 2007":

"I'm going to cheat a bit on the genre with my contribution.  Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar would probably fit more neatly on the fantasy than the crime shelves, but I'm choosing it anyway on the grounds that:

1. 1. Crimes certainly do take place within its pages.
2. 2. It's without doubt the best book I've read this year.

Martin has created an entire werewolf culture, complete with history, dynasties and the most memorable cast of characters I've come across for many a long year.  These colourful immortal characters interact with the human world in the most delightful way (cross-dressing werewolves and fashion obsessed elementals rubbing shoulders with all-too-human grungy but kind students).  These characters - both human and otherwise - make you wish you knew them in real life, even though some of them are prone to mood swings and ... er ... ripping throats out.

The book also works as an allegory on alienation that every non-werewolf who had ever felt like an outsider will be able to relate to.

As if this is not enough to tempt you, Martin has managed to make a story that has undoubtedly gory moments into something wonderfully gentle and sweet.  I'm envious!"

Martin Millar and his novel can also be found on MySpace.  Debi blogs regularly here.

Books for Christmas 2007

Yes, I have two more to post in this series and will do this tomorrow.  I'll also provide my own selection at the end of it (and it will be a selection, I assure you - not only crime fiction, too).  Sorry for the delay and interruption, but I've been dealing with a very close bereavement that hurt me to extremes.  Life changes and sometimes unexpectedly and sometimes not as we'd embrace, should we have a choice in the matter.  Christmas this year will not be the same; it will be forceably different.  I will experience it without any anchor as my immediate family has now departed.

If they can listen and if they are listening in, I'm sure my parents will hear my call "It's all bloody repeats on the telly again" again.  They've heard it, even expressed it, many times before.  And I'll find succour in reading, when not cooking.

But back to books.  I promise a curve ball when it comes to Christmas selections.  And, as they say here in Wales, "Never forget you're Welsh".  So, in addition to the Welsh theme, there will be humour (a font of life) and the usual crime selections.

And if I don't manage this again before the important DATE of 25/12, I do wish you all a very wonderful Christmas and all the very best in 2008!

If we didn't manage it in 2007, I hope we meet up in 2008.

My best wishes to everyone who drops by to read here, and especially those who comment and/or email me,

You make great friends,

With love,

R, aka crimeficreader

Books for Christmas

There will now be a short break in these posts, until the end of the week.  Back with Anne Brooke, Debi Alper and possibly one or two more.

Books for Christmas - Matt Rees

 I see a Mexican wave coming up for the pick from Matt Rees, author of the engrossing The Bethlehem Murders as I know some of you have a fondness for this author:

  "The Patience of the Spider: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery By Andrea Camilleri

The maestro of the Italian detective novel is Andrea Camilleri. This eighth in his series about Sicilian sleuth Salvo Montalbano is without a doubt the best to have been translated into English by Stephen Sartarelli so far. It's by far the most compelling, intelligent mystery I've read this year. Montalbano's a fabulous creation and a true cult hero to Italians. When he isn't obsessing about the crime at hand, he's nearing tears at the quality of the delicious food in his favourite trattoria and enjoying a tempestuous romance with his long-distance girlfriend. Camilleri is, however, not the cheery tour guide type (which proliferates even in murder mysteries set in Europe's most beautiful country). The Patience of the Spider is the darkest in a series which is becoming increasingly bitter about law, order and politics in Italy. The nicely constructed plot revolves around the kidnapping of a girl from a family which used to be rich. But the heart of the book is the struggle by the aging Montalbano--after a lifetime waging war against the lawlessness and neglect of Sicily--to reassert his own faith in the goodness of other human beings. A beautiful novel, full of humour and cultural insight."

--Matt Rees is the author of the Omar Yussef Mysteries, a series about a Palestinian detective. The first book The Bethlehem Murders was published in May by Atlantic Books, which also will publish The Saladin Murders in February. Born in Newport, Wales, he worked as a journalist in the Middle East for more than a decade and now lives in Jerusalem. The French magazine L'Express dubbed him "the Dashiell Hammett of Palestine" and Colin Dexter called Omar Yussef "a splendid creation".

Books for Christmas - Andrew Taylor

Andrew Taylor, author of the wonderful Lydmouth series, The American Boy, the Roth Trilogy and many more sees the need for a wide and deep stocking this Christmas:

"I believe in having a large Christmas stocking and hence there will be room for not one but three crime novels, perhaps bound together in a single omnibus volume of varied criminal delights. Here are three very different books I have enjoyed this year - and to some extent the choice is arbitrary, because I could have chosen many more. But this particular selection certainly illustrates the extraordinary versatility of the genre.
I'll begin with the grimmest of the three. On one level, Tokyo Year Zero (Faber, £16.99) by David Peace is a murder mystery: on another it is a grimly effective exploration of Tokyo a year after the end of World War II. Peace creates – or recreates? – a nightmarish vision of a society in disintegration, both physically and morally. Not for the squeamish, but this is a book that travels deep into its very own heart of darkness.
Next comes a book that isn't exactly cheerful but does have a sophisticated sense of humour. A different sort of darkness from David Peace's is investigated in Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter in the Dark (Orion, £9.99), whose central character is a Miami crime scene investigator and part-time psychopathic killer. With ingredients like that, the novel should be both nauseating and derivative, but it’s neither. It is dark, original, and often very funny – like the Dexter series as a whole.

Finally, in Losing You (Michael Joseph, £12.99), Nicci French gives a brilliant demonstration of how simple a very good thriller can be: a teenage girl goes missing on the Essex coast; in a single day, her mother tries with increasing desperation to track her down, and in the process finds out more about her daughter than she ever suspected. It's a textbook example of how to generate tension - Hitchcock would have loved it. A book to chill the heart of every parent."

Books for Christmas - John Lawton

And now it's the Christmas pick of John Lawton, author of the excellent (because I think so) Frederick Troy novels:

* * * * *

Helpless by Barbara Gowdy.

"Go on, name me half a dozen Canadian writers ... Peggy Atwood (of course) ... Mordecai Richler (that's going back a bit), Stephen Leacock (that's going back even further), Michael Ondaatje (OK ... he lives there, but actually he's from ....) that bloke who wrote a whopper about Newfoundland but nobody remembers his name ... Wayne? .... and Barbara Gowdy.

You might say 'who?' I doubt she's much noticed in the UK, although all but a couple of her books are in print here. Gowdy never does the same thing twice. In that sense, she's Canada's TC Boyle. She's also TC in the sense that while crime is often a vital part of her work, you'd never call her a crime writer. Helpless (2007) deals with a crime that has tabloid currency – child abduction. She deals with it from the point of view of the mother, the girl and ... the kidnappers. It would have been so easy to get this wrong .... to have been campaigning, and reduce the novel to a medium for the campaign, to have been sentimental ... or just grotesque. Gowdy does none of these things. It's a compelling, hugely intelligent read. And when you've read that seek out her "We So Seldom Look On Love" from about twenty years ago."