Wow, second review in as many weeks! Well, thought it was about time to write something about the addicitive Roy Grace written by Peter James.
I started reading the 'Dead....' series featuring the much harassed, Detective Superintendend, Roy Grace a year or so ago. I was totally gripped by the first volume and soon had it finished in a couple of days. This lead me to seek out the other titles in the series and now finally, I've just finished Dead Man's Grip which is the 7th title in the series. This was just published last year, so I'm guessing we'll have to wait a wee while for the next one because he writes other fiction too.
This story was a bit different to the others, in that its starts off with a road traffic accident when a cyclist is knocked off his bike by white van man into the path of an oncoming artic, ending up losing his leg, innards and dying on the road. This in itself is a nasty thing to happen to anyone but doesn't really make a complex crime novel, such that Mr James is famous for. No, the main guts of the story follow on from this. The most unfortunate aspect of this is that the victim of the accident is an American who is studying in Brighton and just happens to be related to a mafia family in New York. Click! As soon as they hear, a contract is put on the 3 people who were involved in the incident although 2 of them were there by happenstance.
Unfortunately, Carly Chase, who swerved to avoid the bike tests positive for drink from the night before and the truck driver has been driving for too long without a break. Obviously, they caused Mr Revere's death!
So the book is a procedural following Roy Grace, Glenn Branson and the rest of the team who feature heavily in the earlier books, trying to find and catch the contract killer. This guys, Tooth, is a psychotic american vet who takes his job very seriously and ultimately does escape but not without being stoppped mid crime.
For me the tension wasn't really as taut as it could have been and the key event/clue which brings Grace and Branson to the final scene, Shoreham Power Station, is a bit tenuous. But hey that's what happens. Another continuing sub plot, the search for his estranged wife, Sandy, is more developed here and obviously, James will be bringing this to a head possibly in the new book. This is because, Grace's fiancee, Cleo is pregnant and it turns out that Sandy also has a son who just might be Roy's!
It would be good if this was developed for TV and I'm quite surprised it hasn't been...yet!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Review of Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallade
Hello out there readers!
Hope your well. Thought I'd have another go at posting book reviews. This'll be the first for some time so if I'm a bit rusty, sorry!
Alone in Berlin is a recently published, "rediscovered" German novel originally published in 1947. I put rediscovered in parenthesis because it was never really lost, it just wasn't translated into English until now. The story is fictional but based on a true case that occurred in Berlin during the war.
The story concerns an ordinary, working class German family, the Quangels, who are coping with wartime Berlin and the privations of a Nazi led Germany. The husband, Otto, is a carpenter who is foreman in a factory that manufactures coffins. His wife, Anna, is a supportive, caring wife who puts up with Otto's ways. They lives in a tenement building occupied by a mixture of characters who feature at various point through the book.
At the outset, Otto and his wife, while not officially members of the Nazi party, do not have any major problems with the Nazi party machine. However, that all changes when their son, Ottochen is killed in action in France (Book starts in 1940). Otto at this point reassesses what is happening around him and realises that he is very unhappy and would like to do what he can to voice his opinion about the the war, propaganda and anything associated with the Nazi machine.
He decides he will write postcards and leave at various public locations to be found by people.
Over the next couple of years he writes over 200 cards which apparently are mostly handed by the people that find them because they are afraid of being caught with such seditious material in their possession.
Eventually, they are caught by their nemesis, Inspector Escheriche, a Gestapo officer, who despite all cliches written about this organisation, who comes across as a very sympathetic character who is more interested in detection than the Nazi party.
Through this chase, various characters, who are venal, greedy, criminal and nasty drop in and out of the tale and give it a gritty, seamy taste. It is the Quangels who bring a bit of humanity and warmth to the plot.
Overall, this is a very interesting slice of German war lift which is lifted from the banal by an unusual act of rebellion which actually occurred. It is sad, violent and full of pathos. The ending ultimately is one of hope.
The background of the author is also worthy of a book in itself. It seems he had major issues with substance abuse and was institutionalised with mental health problems for parts of his life. He was also a successful novelist. Sadly, he died at a young age before this, his best know book was published.
Hope your well. Thought I'd have another go at posting book reviews. This'll be the first for some time so if I'm a bit rusty, sorry!
Alone in Berlin is a recently published, "rediscovered" German novel originally published in 1947. I put rediscovered in parenthesis because it was never really lost, it just wasn't translated into English until now. The story is fictional but based on a true case that occurred in Berlin during the war.
The story concerns an ordinary, working class German family, the Quangels, who are coping with wartime Berlin and the privations of a Nazi led Germany. The husband, Otto, is a carpenter who is foreman in a factory that manufactures coffins. His wife, Anna, is a supportive, caring wife who puts up with Otto's ways. They lives in a tenement building occupied by a mixture of characters who feature at various point through the book.
At the outset, Otto and his wife, while not officially members of the Nazi party, do not have any major problems with the Nazi party machine. However, that all changes when their son, Ottochen is killed in action in France (Book starts in 1940). Otto at this point reassesses what is happening around him and realises that he is very unhappy and would like to do what he can to voice his opinion about the the war, propaganda and anything associated with the Nazi machine.
He decides he will write postcards and leave at various public locations to be found by people.
Over the next couple of years he writes over 200 cards which apparently are mostly handed by the people that find them because they are afraid of being caught with such seditious material in their possession.
Eventually, they are caught by their nemesis, Inspector Escheriche, a Gestapo officer, who despite all cliches written about this organisation, who comes across as a very sympathetic character who is more interested in detection than the Nazi party.
Through this chase, various characters, who are venal, greedy, criminal and nasty drop in and out of the tale and give it a gritty, seamy taste. It is the Quangels who bring a bit of humanity and warmth to the plot.
Overall, this is a very interesting slice of German war lift which is lifted from the banal by an unusual act of rebellion which actually occurred. It is sad, violent and full of pathos. The ending ultimately is one of hope.
The background of the author is also worthy of a book in itself. It seems he had major issues with substance abuse and was institutionalised with mental health problems for parts of his life. He was also a successful novelist. Sadly, he died at a young age before this, his best know book was published.
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Hello Again
Hi there
Thought it was about time that I put something out there again on this dormant blog.
A lot has happened in the last year and I haven't made time to go online and blog.
That's going to change. This is but a small blurb which i hope to follow up with photos, lists, reviews
etc.
I have tweeted a bit but find this slightly unsatisfying and ephemeral
So that's it for now.
See you soon
Gordon
Thought it was about time that I put something out there again on this dormant blog.
A lot has happened in the last year and I haven't made time to go online and blog.
That's going to change. This is but a small blurb which i hope to follow up with photos, lists, reviews
etc.
I have tweeted a bit but find this slightly unsatisfying and ephemeral
So that's it for now.
See you soon
Gordon
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