Supposedly it’s Yrsa Sigurdardottir. Will the comparisons never cease? Apparently not.
Archives For April
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Mary Stewart, who penned some of my favorite gothic romances like Airs Above the Ground or the awesome Nine Coaches Waiting. She’s getting her backlist digitized in May of this year. A few titles are already available to purchase. No digital titles that I can see are available in the US yet or forthcoming. I guess we are not worthy. What do you think of her covers? Well, it beats the covers on Catherine Cookson’s books that’s for sure. I only needed one image of that one. Enjoy the slideshow (just discovered this neat feature).
I lifted some of the Kindle covers from Hodder & Stoughton and I hope they don”t mind. If this post disappears then you know that they did. Have a good weekend.
Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker sits on my bookshelf. The protagonist has a disfiguring scar on his face. The result of a horrible childhood. I bought the hardcover when it first came out. No digital edition as of yet (sigh). I think T. Jefferson Parker is an such underrated author. I don’t know what’s up with the negative reviews of his latest books. Different style? T. Jefferson Parker <—he's such a fine writer. You should check him out if you haven’t. Aside: Saw that Amazon has this book listed as published by Hyperion in 1900. It’s not quite…that old. My copy has copyright date of 2001.
Another hobby of mine is reading graphic novels. It Was the War of the Trenches (2010, 120 pages) is written and drawn by French artist, Jacques Tardi, known simply as “Tardi” and translated by Kim Thompson. Tardi is my new discovery. I caught onto him quite late via his most famous heroine, Adèle Blanc-Sec and her adventures, set in 20th century Paris.
“The only thing that interests me is man and his suffering and it fills me with rage.” -Tardi
Why read this graphic novel? I’ve always had an interest in war stories and It Was The War of the Trenches is an engrossing read from start to finish. I don’t know why I read such depressing stories. I just do. The foreword by the author goes in depth behind the premise of his work. I will quote a piece of it here for you because well, he does a better of job of explaining it and I like to cut to the chase: Continue Reading…
What do adults find so appealing about YA novels? That seems to be the million dollar question these days and . . .I’m not answering that for you. I’m not justifying my reading material to you. If you want to sincerely know why most adults read YA then ask what books we enjoy reading. I find it quite insulting to ask me why I read it. I’m writing this post to let off some steam, too. Sorry! It seems that disdain amongst genre fiction is inherent. The dismissive tone is nothing new and I let it get to me and I shouldn’t. I’m used to it. Hey, I read romance! I find the dismissive tone to be an irritant. How you handle irritants is…you just have to ignore them. Here are a list of my favorite YA writers (links to websites if available) if you care to try one of them. Every genre has gems that exemplify it and some that do not. That’s true for all genre fiction right? That’s what I thought… Continue Reading…
The U.S. takes forever to get stuff over here. So, I browse the UK Amazon catalog for authors I already read to see what they have coming down the pike. I found the following titles of possible interest:
French crime fiction writer, Fred Vargas (trs by Sian Reynolds) – An Uncertain Place (digital available in UK only) – this is the sixth book in the Commissaire Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg series. None of her books are available digitally in the U.S. yet. Just print. Let’s work on that okay?
Swedish writer, Johan Theorin has a new mystery coming out in the UK, The Quarry (June 23rd). I might have to break down and buy this in print if it’s not digitized. Enjoyed The Darkest Room very much. This author writes atmospheric stories with a hint of ghostly elements in them. Continue Reading…
Sun Storm (2006, 310 pages) by Åsa Larsson with translation by Marlaine Delargy is the first book in a series set in Stockholm. The other title(s) for this book: Solstorm in Sweden and The Savage Altar in the UK. I love good drama and this book delivered. Overall thoughts: gripping, page-turning. I raced to the end.
A religious leader is slain in a church that he helped build and the community shuts down and refuses to cooperate with the police. The only way to crack the case is by a disgraced former member of that community. Cast of characters include the cold, distant, uncooperative pastors/elders whose lips are shut tight. Then there’s the victim’s fragile sister, mother of two little girls. Continue Reading…
Started reading Mucho Mojo: A Hap and Leonard Novel (1994) last night. It’s the 2nd book in a 8 book series (I think as I didn’t count the novellas) with the first book being Savage Season (1990). Again, this is another new to me author but one I’ve heard about over the years.
Joe R. Lansdale is an Edgar Award winner (he’s won other awards as well). This mystery series follows the friendship and crime solving duo of Hap Collins, who is white and straight and Leonard Pine, who is black and gay. The series is set in the author’s hometown of East Texas. The novel length is 231 pages according to my digital reader. Here is the back blurb:
Hap and Leonard return in this incredible, mad-dash thriller, loaded with crack addicts, a serial killer, and a body count.Leonard is still nursing the injuries he sustained in the duo’s last wild undertaking when he learns that his Uncle Chester has passed. Hap is of course going to be there for his best friend, and when the two are cleaning up Uncle Chester’s dilapidated house, they uncover a dark little secret beneath the house’s rotting floor boards—a small skeleton buried in a trunk. Hap wants to call the police. Leonard, being a black man in east Texas, persuades him this is not a good idea, and together they set out to clear Chester’s name on their own. The only things standing in their way is a houseful of felons, a vicious killer, and possibly themselves.
Lifted from his Wikipedia page:
Lansdale paints a picture of East Texas which is essentially “good” but blighted by racism, ignorance, urban and rural deprivation and corruption in public officials. Some of the subject matter is extremely dark, and has included pedophilia and anti-gay violence. The novels are characterised by sharp humour and “wisecracking” dialogue.
All I can say is that. . . I like dark. This should be good.
Signing into Twitter this morning, the first thing I read is: “Watch out for Danish author Jussi-Adler Olsen” – from The Crime House website (Swedish website for international readers). Just to add, Twitter is a great place to get book recommendations. It was on Twitter that someone recommended that I read Stieg Larsson before he became this huge publishing phenomenon.
Moving past that all of that, it seems that Jussi Adler Olsen’s credentials include winning the Glass Key award in 2010 for Message in a Bottle (Flaskepost fra P.). Just for those who don’t know, The Glass Key award is a literary award handed out to crime writers from Nordic countries. Previous winners include authors I’ve enjoyed reading: Johan Theorin for The Darkest Room (excellent novel) and Stieg Larsson and Arnaldur Indridason have two titles each on the list. If the Edgar awards in the US or the Shamus Awards are your barometer for what’s good, well the Glass Key is mine for international reads.
The info I’ve gleaned about the author, he seems to have a lot of respect for his readers and doesn’t like labels. As for his work, he is regarded as the bestselling crime fiction writer in Denmark, topping the charts elsewhere as well. His series seems to center around Department Q. The star of the series is Copenhagen homicide detective Carl Mørck. He’s described as being very flawed (aren’t they all? I wouldn’t have it any other way). The first three books in the series are with English titles: The Woman in the Cage, The Pheasant Killers, Message in a Bottle, and his latest is Journal 64. What is coming to the US is supposed to be the first book in the series, titled, The Keeper of Lost Causes (Aug 2011). Well, I got a copy of it via Netgalley so yes, expect a review. I’m really excited to read it now, after all, these are police procedurals, my first love and let’s see if the Danes have it right. The US is looking for that next big hit.
Meanwhile, here are a few articles I read or used in this post:
Denmark’s absolute best-selling crime author these days is named Jussi Adler-Olsen
Jussi Adler-Olsen, Fasandræberne (2008)
Wikepedia page for the author
Jussi Adler-Olsen wins the Glass Key Award for 2010
Book Review: The Keeper of Lost Causes (she describes the author’s prose style as being similar to Hammett and Chandler)
City of Shadows (2006) by Ariana Franklin is a novel of suspense set in 1920′s Germany. The premise: a young Polish woman claims to be the long lost daughter of Russia’s last czar. However, this woman is trouble. A killer is patiently waiting in the shadows to silence her. My thoughts: gripping story.
Brief history: The Emperor of Russia along with his wife and children were murdered by revolutionists in 1918. Many people, it seems, are willing to entertain the possibility that youngest daughter, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna escaped death. Many imposters came out of the woodwork to oblige them, too. It wasn’t until 2008 that her remains were found.
Cabaret owner and charlatan, Prince Nick, runs a high end night club in Berlin that caters to political dignitaries. He runs into a young polish woman, Anna Anderson in a mental hospital. She’s convinced people that she’s Anastasia. The resemblance between her and the murdered duchess is rather striking. The two could be twins if… one were to not look too closely at her. A plan is born. With a scheme in place, Nick and his cohorts work to pass her off as the long lost Grand Duchess and if they succeed, they get to collect the Romanov inheritance. Continue Reading…
I’m reading another new to me author. It is Sun Storm by Swedish crime fiction writer, Åsa Larsson. Ms. Larsson has written other novels in this series with the first being Sun Storm featuring Rebecka Martinsoon. Reading order below. Here is the back blurb for Sun Storm (2006):
On the floor of a church in northern Sweden, the body of a man lies mutilated and defiled–and in the night sky, the aurora borealis dances as the snow begins to fall….So begins Åsa Larsson’s spellbinding thriller, winner of Sweden’s Best First Crime Novel Award and an international literary sensation.
Rebecka Martinsson is heading home to Kiruna, the town she’d left in disgrace years before. A Stockholm attorney, Rebecka has a good reason to return: her friend Sanna, whose brother has been horrifically murdered in the revivalist church his charisma helped create. Beautiful and fragile, Sanna needs someone like Rebecka to remove the shadow of guilt that is engulfing her, to forestall an ambitious prosecutor and a dogged policewoman. But to help her friend, and to find the real killer of a man she once adored and is now not sure she ever knew, Rebecka must relive the darkness she left behind in Kiruna, delve into a sordid conspiracy of deceit, and confront a killer whose motives are dark, wrenching, and impossible to guess….
Update: Ms. Larsson has two other books in this series and the reading order as follows and all are digitized:
#1 Sun Storm (2006)
#2 The Blood Split (2007)
#3 The Black Path (2008)
