[Usually I’m much quicker at reviewing things I’ve finished, but this one slipped through.]
The first book in Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles, a historical fiction series featuring protagonist Francis Crawford, Master of Lymond. Set in 16th century Scotland and England, the story follows Lymond, the younger son of a Scottish noble family, who was exiled after being accused of treason. He returns to the country of his birth as an outlaw, and becomes embroiled in a complicated mesh of political intrigue: The Scots and the English are at war over the future of their countries, and Lymond is caught in the middle. Dunnett’s writing is wordy and dense—none more so than Lymond himself. I originally picked up this book since it compared the main character to two of my favorite protagonists, Miles Vorkosigan and Lord Peter Wimsey, and while the similarities are there, this book plods a bit more than either of their adventures, not to mention the convoluted plot which had me constantly flipping back to the list of dramatis personae. I may go back to read the rest of the series at some point, but for now it’s on to other things.
The fourth and (to date) most recent book featuring private exorcist Felix Castor. This time Fix is in over his head when a spate of violence at a housing project leads him to something he’s never run into before. Before long, he’s embroiled with the police and his own personal demons, both literal and figurative. While I found the main plot of the book less entrancing than some of the previous installments, I did enjoy both the beginning of the book and the finale, which promises a blockbuster fifth book to come. I’ve enjoyed every book in this series a lot, and Carey’s writing style, a heady blend of noir, humor, and gore, has much to do with that. I look forward to further installments.
The third book in the Felix Castor series (following
The Devil You Know and
Vicious Circle),
Dead Men’s Boots picks up shortly after volume two, and there are a number of threads continued from the earlier books, such as the situation of Fix’s friend Rafi (possessed by the demon Asmodeus), although they take a backseat to the more pressing plot, which involves one of Fix’s dead colleagues (glimpsed briefly in an earlier book) and a murder following the pattern of a long dead American serial killer. Carey’s writing continues to be enjoyable and atmospheric, and I like this series, and its attendant world, more and more as I continue. I’m looking forward to reading volume four, which I also acquired in UK paperback,
Thicker Than Water.
My third Ambler book, after
Journey Into Fear and
Epitaph for a Spy. Like both of them, it focuses around an innocent bystander drawn into a plot of intrigue and espionage. In this case, our protagonist is British journalist Kenton, who is entrusted with sensitive photographs by a rogue Soviet agent. Strangely enough, it is the Soviets who are the good guys in this book (set in the late ’30s). The bad guys are not just Germans, though, but also include a large London-based oil company looking to make a killing by inciting some trouble in Eastern Europe. Some things never change, I guess.
My second Ambler book in the past couple months (the first was
Journey Into Fear.
Epitaph bears some resemblance to
Journey, in that it too is about an innocent bystander who becomes embroiled in an espionage plot. In this case, the narrator is Josef Vadassy, a Yugoslavian-born Hungarian citizen who is arrested by the French on espionage charges, due to incriminating photographs in his possession. What follows is a paranoid excursion as Vadassy finds himself trapped into having to help the authorities smoke out the real spy. Almost all the action takes place at a small hotel, the Réserve, and it feels a bit like a play. According to IMDB, two separate TV series and a movie were made out of the book, with Vadassy played by both Peter Cushing and James Mason. Sadly, Netflix has none of them.
The full title is
Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof: Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory, which perhaps says more about the book than I could hope to in such a small space. Blount is a great, funny writer, and the book is structured as a trip through the alphabet with stops at his favorite words and phrases (or his pet peeves). While in most cases, I agree with many of his complaints about the state of modern language usage, I can’t help but notice that he is sometimes indiscriminate about what transitions of usage he accepts and which he resists. Language is an evolving medium, and it seems to me that you must accept the good along with the bad. (This was one of two language-related books I got for Christmas; the second of which, Henry Hitchings’s
The Secret Life of Words, I’m still working on slowly. It takes me much longer to read non-fiction than fiction on average).
The fifth and penultimate volume of
Scott Pilgrim (the
first four volumes of which I devoured last August) sees the eponymous slacker hero turn 24. But 24 isn’t a good age for Scott: Sex Bob-omb isn’t what it used to be, Ramona’s acting weird (and her head is glowing!), and the twin exes that Scott must face in battle seem to be concerning themselves with getting inside his head. The old cliche says things are darkest right before dawn, and I think that’s the position that O’Malley is putting Scott in. Still, despite the adversity our hero faces, the title manages to keep hold of its offbeat, geeky humor. I await the final installment with much anticipation.
Reputedly the inspiration for both Kurosawa’s
Yojimbo and Leone’s
A Fistful of Dollars, Hammett’s
Red Harvest follows the
Continental Op to Personville, so nasty its residents call it “Poisonville.” The little town is basically controlled by gangsters, and the Op finds himself in the middle of the whole racket, his client murdered before he even sets eyes on him. This isn’t your typical mystery story—there are a
lot of murders before the whole thing is over, and the one that closest resembles a typical murder mystery plot doesn’t occur until the book is three quarters finished (and, in fact, it’s spoiled by the blurb on the back of my vintage 1961 edition). The rest reads more like a modern day gangster movie.
Ambler’s not necessarily a household name like Hammett or Chandler, but in the field of espionage thrillers, he’s one of the grand masters. Before he died in 1998, Ambler had written 18 novels on his own (five more under a pseudonym with a co-author) and a few short story collections. A couple of his books were turned into films, including
Journey into Fear (sadly, neither Netflix or my local library had a copy), which follows the story of English weapons engineer Graham returning home from Istanbul. The naive Graham gets caught up in a mess of intrigue, with Nazi assassins gunning for him aboard an Italian freighter. As a page-turner, it’s thoroughly entertaining even today, even if Ambler’s prose doesn’t quite have the same memorable nature as Chandler or Hammett.
I’m a fan of much of Bradbury’s work: the man’s prose is simply lyrical at times, and when meshed with the right kind of story, the result is magical. This story didn’t really do it for me, though.
Let’s All Kill Constance is set up kind of as a mystery, but as the story progresses it becomes apparent that it’s more of an allegory, about an aging film star of Hollywood’s past who is trying to reinvent herself. Sort of. The way Bradbury writes is still riveting—you can’t read it too fast, or you’ll miss something—but the details of the plot (whose narrator is more Bradbury than not) are more confusing than entrancing.
