Crime Fiction Lover
Archive for December, 2011
The Cold Cold Ground
Written by Adrian McKinty – The premise behind this story is enough to catch your interest straight away. It’s set in Northern Ireland in 1981, right in the middle of the IRA hunger strikes. The police have plenty to deal with as nationalists riot in the streets, fought back by the army and the police.[...]
That Awful Mess at the Via Merulana
Written by Carlo Emilio Gadda – I’m going to get the bad part out of the way first – this book is unfinished. It’s also 65 years old and Italo Calvino considered it to be a landmark work of modern Italian literature. Still with me? Good, because That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana is[...]
Look who’s writing for us IV
As we head towards 2012 it seems there’s no stopping Crime Fiction Lover. We’ve been joined by a great new reviewer in the form of Eva Dolan, the unstoppable crime-fiction-loving force behind the excellent blog Loitering With Intent. It’s over to Eva now for a few words about herself, in her own words: “I’m an[...]
LoiteringWithIntent: Top five books of 2011
Picking your top five books of the year seems like the quickest way to annoy everyone else you’ve read without the hassle of going round their houses and setting fire to their pets – which I just don’t have time for. So… been a pretty good year in crime fiction hasn’t it? A new Sherlock[...]
HoCaM: Top five crime books of 2011
I can’t say definitively that these are the best books because I haven’t read everything out there, and who am I to decide for others, right? But these five novels all touched me, thrilled me, and in various ways impressed me the most. Don’t try to get me to list them in order of preference[...]
Hope Road
John Barlow isn’t new to writing, but he is new to crime fiction. Caught up in the enthusiasm for digital publishing, his first crime novel The Hope Road has just come out on Kindle. It’s set in Leeds, and is the first of nine books in the LS9 series he’s writing (refering to the Leeds[...]
The Low Road
Written by Chris Womersley – At what point did Australian crime fiction become dissatisfied with the confines of the genre and aspire to be something closer to literature? It probably started with Truth, the 2010 novel by Peter Temple, which won a heap of gongs, including the prestigious Miles Franklin Award. Following closely behind was[...]
Pulp Curry: Top five books of 2011
A couple of brief caveats before I give up my top five crime books for 2011. First, my tastes veer strongly towards the darker side of crime fiction, particularly noir, hard-boiled and pulp fiction, and this list is skewed accordingly. Second, I’m going to cheat a little and, in addition to my top five, give[...]
Spriteby: Top five books of 2011
This year has certainly been a prolific year for crime fiction, with several new entrants to the genre who I think are definitely set to give the old guard a run for their money. This year for me has been about new discoveries – writers who are new to the genre, or just new for me.[...]
Mercy
Written by Jussi Adler-Olsen – This is the first of four books in the author’s Department Q series to be translated from Danish into English. And, if you’re into your Scandinavian crime fiction like I am, I’d be very surprised if you don’t find it to be a gripping page turner. It all starts off[...]
Sleep Like the Dead
Written by Alex Gray — A professional hitman guns down and murders a seemingly innocent person on their doorstep. DCI Lorimer is tasked with discovering the reason for this seemingly random attack. Meanwhile, a professional killer is stalking the streets of Glasgow, looking to be paid for his work. Marianne Brogan is having sleepless nights,[...]
Far South
Written as the casebook of Juan Manuel Perez, Far South follows his detailed investigation into the disappearance of enigmatic theatre director, Gerardo Fischer. It’s set in Argentina, but what makes it so new and experimental is that at certain points the story points you to websites to watch short films, listen to audio recordings and[...]
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