Thirteen is certainly not an unlucky number for Norwegian author Jo Nesbo, whose thirteenth crime novel has just been released in English. Winner of countless prizes, including the prestigious Glass Key Award, the Edgar Award, and Norway’s Peer Gynt Prize, Nesbo has written ten novels in the Harry Hole series, and three stand-alone novels, Headhunters, The Son, and now Blood on Snow, a novel quite different in length, focus, and tone from all that have gone before. Readers who admire Nesbo for his ability to write in a variety of thriller subgenres from horror (The Snowman) to an historical about Norway’s Nazi past and neo-Nazi present (The Redbreast) – have come to expect complex, multi-layered plots punctuated by action scenes of almost unimaginable violence. This short novel about a hired killer introduces a newer style, however – leaner, cleaner, and more introspective, with wonderful ironic humor new for readers of Nesbo. Though the novel certainly has its excitements, much of the novel capitalizes on the ironies which exist between the thinking of Olav Johansen, the young, dyslexic main character, and his actions as a “fixer.” It is through Olav’s running commentary that the reader understands the narrative, and one cannot miss the tongue-in-cheek attitude of the author who is controlling this character.
Read Full Post »
It is no secret that “Benjamin Black,” author of nine noir crime novels, is the pen name of highly esteemed Irish author John Banville, author of sixteen literary novels and winner of more than twenty of the writing world’s most prestigious prizes, including the Man Booker Prize for The Sea. In these literary novels, Banville works as an artist, producing thoughtful and beautifully articulated novels at the rate of about one every two years. As Benjamin Black, Banville has written an additional eight noir crime thrillers, seven of them starring a pathologist named Quirke, and in these novels he is seen as a craftsman, rather than an artist, a recognition of the distinction between the genres and the fact that his crime novels are produced at a much faster speed, approximately one a year. The Black-Eyed Blonde, his ninth noir mystery, is his first novel written from the point of view of Philip Marlowe, the popular hard-boiled detective featured in six novels and a series of short stories by one of the earliest noir novelists, Raymond Chandler, between 1939 and 1958. Hard-drinking and often down-on-his luck, detective Philip Marlowe is shown as a loner who says what he thinks, a man with few friends and no long-term love in his life. As “pulp fiction” goes, this is probably among the best, though it is a long way from John Banville’s literary work. Still, critics and most fans of Raymond Chandler have celebrated the closeness of Black’s version of Marlowe to that of the original. Though the novel’s cold aloofness may put off some readers, it is consistent with the novel’s theme: “People get hurt unless they keep a sharp lookout.”
Read Full Post »
Maurizio de Giovanni’s sixth entry in the series of Neapolitan novels starring Commissario Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi will delight fans of the series and, I suspect, send new readers thronging to bookstores to get some of his earlier novels. Set in 1932, during the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, this novel shows Mussolini as he consolidates his power and imposes his fascism more broadly. The action begins when Viper, the most beautiful prostitute at Il Paradiso, a bordello, is murdered on the job. As her professional time was almost completely occupied with only two clients who have alibis – a wealthy man who specializes in the sale of religious statuettes and trinkets and a young man from her hometown who wants to marry her – the investigation soon widens to the whole of Naples. De Giovanni’s novels have become increasingly sophisticated and complex in their structure in the course of this series. At the same time, his comfort with his odd group of characters, his relaxed narrative tone, and his sometimes humorous details provide a teasing narrative which will keep readers smiling and guessing throughout. Readers new to de Giovanni will find that they gain most of the background they need through the narrative, though long-time readers will enjoy this even more. Everyone will agree, I suspect, that this is de Giovanni’s best novel yet – great fun!
Read Full Post »
In his second novel of what appears to be the beginning of a series, Neapolitan author Diego De Silva reintroduces hapless attorney Vincenzo Malinconico, a man lacking in ambition, commitment, and self-awareness. Vincenzo has managed to stay out of the public eye, since his last outing, leading a conveniently quiet, though not necessarily satisfying, life. His wife, a psychologist, left him for another man more than two years ago, and he has had his own relationships, the most recent of which, with a gorgeous fellow-attorney, is currently on the rocks. Not surprisingly, given his lack of ambition, his caseload is almost non-existent: “I’m not a tough guy,” he admits. “If you want to know the truth, I doubt I’ve ever made a real decision in my whole life…I’m not a multiple-options kind of guy, really.” His life changes on a simple trip to the supermarket, where the engineer friend of a former client approaches him and speaks to him, asking Vincenzo, out of the blue, if he represents criminal cases. Engineer Romulo Sesti Orfeo suddenly warns him that something is about to happen. A hostage situation in the supermarket then ensues, and Vincenzo is the only only one who can defuse the situation. Funny, satiric.
Read Full Post »
You have to give Jack Laidlaw credit. He does see himself as others see him, and his life definitely does lack continuity. In this third novel of William McIlvanney’s Laidlaw trilogy, published in 1991, after Laidlaw (1977) and The Papers of Tony Veitch (1983), the main character, a detective with the Glasgow police, is divorced, alienated from his teenage children, at a crisis in his relationship with a new woman, and addicted to the possibilities of escape through alcohol. Now he has learned that his troubled younger brother Scott, a teacher, has died in a pedestrian accident, his life “snuffed out on the random number plate of a car,” and Laidlaw is about ready to “shut up shop on [his] beliefs and hand in [his] sense of morality at the desk. The world was a bingo stall,” a conclusion which depresses him beyond words. He is convinced that Scott’s death must mean more than it seems to mean, and he feels an inexplicable sense of guilt. Requesting a week’s time off from the job, he decides to investigate Scott’s death in an effort to learn how it happened and if it was truly random. Despite the large number of characters and the complex interrelationships among them, the novel provides a perfect ending, tying up the details of the themes and the action at the same time that it suggests a memorable coda: “And the meek shall inherit the earth, but not this week.” Outstanding and memorable, a classic.
Read Full Post »
