Synopsis:

Combining edgy suspense and the vivid period detail that made The Given Day a smashing
success, award-winning, bestselling author Dennis Lehane delivers a masterful epic of
Prohibition-era America told through the story of a charismatic young gangster on his
rise through the glitz and the violence of the Roaring 20s. (Oct 2012)

 

Commentary: 

This book has already been optioned by Warner Bro. for actor Leonardo DiCaprio. As a fan of Dennis Lehane’s work, I can’t wait to read this one. My favorite books by him are: Mystic River, Darkness Take My Hand, Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island and Prayers For Rain.

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
“It is futile,” I said,
“You can never —”

“You lie,” he cried,
And ran on.

I Saw A Man Pursuing the Horizon – Stephen Crane

Dream Lover is a movie of psychological suspense, quoted by the New York Times as a “smart, diabolical thriller” that stars James Spader and Mädchen Amick. The film is written and directed by Nicholas Kazan. I first heard about Dream Lover from movie critic Roger Ebert on Siskel & Ebert, praising Mädchen Amick for her beauty and her performance in the film. I agree that her performance was memorable but so was the ending which had a nice surprise twist.

Ray Reardon (James Spader) is rich and successful. He runs his own architect business. He’s getting divorced when the movie opens. From chatting with his friends, we learn that Ray prefers the family life to that of being single. His friends take him out to cheer him up on his newly single status. During a party for his friend, Norman (Larry Miller), Ray meets the beautiful Lena Mathers (Mädchen Amick). He accidently bumps into her and she spills her drink down her dress. She rudely tells him off and leaves. Continue Reading…

San Francisco private investigator Sam Spade is asked to help find an artifact that several parties are interested in finding. He gets strung along by a new client Miss Wonderly, who spits out an interesting tale about her sister running away. She asks Sam and his partner to help find her. Well, things begin to go downhill after the first couple of murders that sets things into motion in this 1930 publication of THE MALTESE FALCON written by Dashiell Hammett. There’s a film by the same name that will be forever immortalized by Humphrey Bogart, the actor who epitomized the cold and distant detective.

This is my second Dashiell Hammett book and I was in the mood for a light mystery. If you consider murder and mayhem without all the gore “light.” I so enjoyed RED HARVEST that featured the nameless “op” from San Francisco that I was excited to read another one of his books. Samuel “Sam” Spade runs the detective agency of Spade & Archer with his partner, Miles. Sam is described as having a “blond satan’s head” and a face with a v-motif. He’s a somewhat likable character although he does have a problem with authority figures. He’s charismatic at times and attentive. However, he can be stubborn, cold and distant. His trustworthy secretary, Effie Perine watches his back and serves as his sounding board. To sum up, THE MALTESE FALCON reading experience did help pass the time away. There are some slight spoilers ahead. Continue Reading…

This post is just to inform readers who regularly visit that WordPress.com has made changes to the commenting system/discussion. On the comment page there’s an option to subscribe to comments. Before the change, you had the choice to select this option but now this option is selected for you by default. As a WordPress member, I don’t have the ability to change this setting since my blog is hosted on their platform. I appreciate the comments that readers leave when they are moved to do so. The purpose of my post is to ask readers that if you leave comments and don’t want to be notified of follow-up comments via email:please uncheck the box before you hit submit reply. The burden is on you to do this unfortunately. Continue Reading…

the pledge Nine years ago a little girl’s body was found in the woods in a farmer’s village near Zürich. Two other girls were murdered in a similar fashion several years earlier in two different townships. No trace of the perpetrator was found. The lieutenant who’s assigned the case in Zürich makes a pledge to the victim’s family to find the killer. Over the course of the investigation the detective becomes obsessed. He has no clue what forces work against him. That is the basic premise that makes up this atypical crime novel The Pledge (Das Versprechen is the German title). The story is short at 172 pages. The novella was published in 1958 by Swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt and translated by Joel Agee.

The story – told in first person narrative – of The Pledge explores various themes one of which criticizes detective literature as being “unrealistic” and “deceptive” and goes on to show how. Crimes are solved purely by luck and chance. The narrative of the story is a mystery within a mystery and uses a tone that is low-key at the start but then it slowly crescendos to a quiet yet “chilling conclusion.” Continue Reading…

Witness (1985)

April 15, 2012 — 6 Comments

Witness (1985) is a film starring Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lukas Hass and directed by Peter Weir. The plot for Witness is deceptively a simple one. It is about a young Amish boy who witnesses a murder at a Philadelphia train station. Detective John Book as portrayed by Harrison Ford, is assigned the homicide case. Turns out a cop was murdered and he has a single eye-witness who saw the killer. Kelly McGillis plays Rachel Lapp. She’s the mother of Samuel (Lukas Hass), the little boy who saw the crime. Rachel’s just lost her husband and was traveling to Baltimore to see her sister. Now her son is involved in a homicide investigation.

While Samuel is at police headquarters, looking through pages of possible suspects, he looks up and spots a photo of a police officer and it turns out to be the same man he saw kill another cop. Book immediately shares this information with another cop and that turns out to be a mistake. Soon he finds himself being targeted and he gets shot. He picks up Rachel and Samuel from his sister’s apartment in the middle of the night and takes them back home, telling them ominously that there won’t be a trial. As he leaves, his car veers off the road and he is taken in and taken care of by Rachel’s family.

Continue Reading…

Here comes another book by Keigo Higashino with Alexander O. Smith translating – Salvation of a Saint (Oct 2012). His second translated book in the US, The Devotion of Suspect X out now, was good about two academic professors, on opposite sides of the law, matching wits with each during a murder investigation. The book was nominated for an Edgar this year. Here is the book description below and yes it is another novel featuring physics professor, Manabu Yukawa dubbed Detective Galileo by the detectives:

Yoshitaka, who was about to leave his marriage and his wife, is poisoned by arsenic-laced coffee and dies. His wife, Ayane, is the logical suspect—except that she was hundreds of miles away when he was murdered. The lead detective, Tokyo Police Detective Kusanagi, is immediately smitten with her and refuses to believe that she could have had anything to do with the crime. His assistant, Kaoru Utsumi, however, is convinced Ayane is guilty. While Utsumi’s instincts tell her one thing, the facts of the case are another matter. So she does what her boss has done for years when stymied—she calls upon Professor Manabu Yukawa.

But even the brilliant mind of Dr. Yukawa has trouble with this one, and he must somehow find a way to solve an impossible murder and capture a very real, very deadly murderer.

Salvation for a Saint is Keigo Higashino at his mind-bending best, pitting emotion against fact in a beautifully plotted crime novel filled with twists and reverses that will astonish and surprise even the most attentive and jaded of readers.

I lost track of Dianne Emley. I read her debut novel, The First Cut (2006) several years ago and thought it was very good but violent but not gratuitously so. Still reads well today after a quick re-read. Engaging voice with an immediate hook into the story about a vice cop lured to the dark side and then goes missing.

This is a police procedural set in California that follows Pasadena PD officer, Nanette Vining. She returns to work after a year’s absence. She survived a brutal assault on the job where she flat-lined for two minutes and then “jolted awake.” The experience left her with panic attacks and gave her the added, unwelcome psychic ability to hear the dead speak. The author uses those scenes sparingly and managed to make it creepy. Continue Reading…

Update: I’m just passing along the news link(s) that are making the rounds on Twitter at the moment about the recent developments with publishing and ebook pricing. All the info is below the break. I’m told there is a class action lawsuit underway as well. I plan to update this page with info as I receive it throughout the day. The info for those interested is below the break. Continue Reading…

Just in case some of you didn’t know, cover art and blurb is already up for the next Jussi-Adler Olsen book is set to release August 2012, titled The Absent One in the U.S and June 2012 in the UK under the title Disgrace. This is the second novel featuring Danish detective Carl Mørck, who works on cold cases in Department Q. The first book if you missed it was The Keeper of Lost Causes. It’s a book I still need to read myself.

The blurbs for both books are below the break for those who have an interest. Continue Reading…