Friday, September 25, 2009
If you happen to be in Dublin next Thursday check this out......Labels: Storytelling in Dublin Thursday October 1st
Thursday, September 24, 2009
A family get together in rural Ramelton, County Donegal. The Sweeney family members accompanied by their spouses and girlfriends are there for the occasion. All apparently is joyous and airy. A pleasant few days is anticipated. The impending celebrations are disrupted however when the family are told that the one member, Joe , who remained on the family farm, is found dead.The news is broken to the family by mild mannered local detective Inspector Starrett. Starrett is an unusual fictional detective. He is single, well liked in his community, has no enemies, has no secrets and is in no way angst ridden. As well as being a sharp dresser, Inspector Starrett is known to partake of a pint of Guinness. In short he is a popular local policeman going about his business in rural Ireland.
As the investigation unfolds we are introduced to the family members, their rivalries, bitter disputes, the grudges they've born down the years against each other. We learn that the majority of the family want to sell the farm to developers. However the siblings are far from singing in one voice in regards to this. The head of the family Liam Sweeney was set to hand the farm over to his son Joe. The dispute over the future of the family farm and the enmity which ensues will appeal to the Irish psyche. Readers will recall The Bull McCabe of The Field.
Like any good crime novel as the crime is under investigation we are brought on a journey thought the investigator's life. We learn that Starrett once upon a time harboured ambitions to be a priest. In pursuit of this he ended a relationship with the women he loved. The woman now widowed had recently re-entered Starrett's life. The woman in question is less than enthusiastic; she has three children and memories of their relationship. Starrett himself is pursued by the local amorous hospital pathologist.
Initially Paul Charles goes into great detail describing family members, their appearances, shoes, shirts etc and some readers may find this off-putting. However they should plough through this early section of the book before the Inspector Starrett investigation goes into full swing.
Family Life by Paul Charles is the second in the Inspector Starrett detective series.
Labels: Family Lifeby Paul Charles a review
Friday, August 21, 2009
“The Dark Place” by Sam Millar is the second in the series of Karl Kane novels. Like “Bloodstorm” the first novel in the series, “The Dark Place” takes place in a post conflict Belfast. The city is suffering under a sweltering heat wave when Karl Kane, private investigator, is visited by a young woman asking him to find her troubled younger sister who has run away from a hostel she was resident in.The premises of the novel is that a serial killer is on the loose in Belfast city. He is wealthy, influential and charming. He preys on young girls, runaways who are both homeless and drug addicts. The police are not unduly concerned, and are initially dismissive of the case. It is only when Karl Kane’s daughter Katie, is abducted that they are forced to act. Kane’s brother in law is non other that Police Inspector Mark Wilson. To further complicate matters Kane is divorced from Wilson’s sister and the two men hold each other in complete and utter contempt. The scenes where Karl Kane an Inspector Wilson verbally joust are incredibly well written and you get the sense that here are two characters who really can’t abide the sight of each other.
Millar is very graphic, at times shockingly so, in his descriptions of the incarceration and tortures the young victims of the killer are forced to endure. Some readers will find themselves repulsed others will be drawn hypnotically into the dark subterranean world.
Throughout the dark shadows of the troubles are omnipresent, their cries echo throughout the novel. Millar however avoids the pitfalls of commenting on the past and coming down on one side or other in the conflict. His characters skate around the past and are content for the most part not to comment on their previous actions.
“The Dark Places” is you’re a typical noir crime novel. A corrupt police force, a society gone wrong and a private investigator battling his own demons from the past. A hard man who sometimes successfully hides his past Karl Kane walks what can be safely described as the hardest streets in Europe.
It may help the reader to have read the first novel in the series for background into private investigator’s Karl Kane’s past, but it will not be wholly necessary. Millar introduces the history of Kane with excellence and rather than breaking the narrative such flashbacks only adds colour to the story.
Karl Kane is a character the reader cannot help but warm to. He’s fond of putting a few pound on the horses and inevitably looses more than he wins. He also harbors ambitions to be a writer and elicits our sympathy when he receives a letter from an old school mate, now a successful crime writer, rebuffing his attempts at writing. You get the feeling that such a rebuff may have happened Sam Millar. It cut’s too close to the bone.
With almost fifty chapters, the action in the novel rips along. With “The Dark Places” Sam Millar has confirmed himself as an exciting talent on the Irish Crime scene.
Labels: The Dark Place by Sam Millar. A review.
Monday, July 27, 2009
With thanks to John Self at the asylum blog.Colony by Hugo Wiclcken begins with Sabir, a former soldier, hero of the Great War, and petty criminal who is being transported to serve a sentence in French Guinea. A gruesome experience awaits him andSabir knows that even after serving his sentence, should he survive, he will never again be able to return to France. He is forever an exile. Cast off physically and metaphorically from French society.
The Colony and its administration is described as a living hell, both for guards and prisoners. Wilcken portrays the jungle is almost a hellish netherworld from which there is ultimately no escape. Besides Sabir is totally alone. His father disowned him and his fiancée was nowhere to be seen when his prison ship set sail for The Colony.
In the second part of the novel we are introduced to Manne, a deserter from the Great War who poses as an amateur botanist who, under the pretext of carrying out a survey of the area, ends up living in the camp commanders residence. He meets the commander’s wife, who asks him to help her escape from the camp. She feels she is as much a prisoner as the men serving their time.
However their escape plans do not turn out as planned and the whole escapade is seen as an exercise in stupidity. The reality is that no one in the colony can escape. Everyone, regardless of status, is trapped and facing a potential life sentence.
The third and final part of the novel can best be described as an hallucinating fantasy, a metaphor for the delusional grandeur of the colonial powers.
Idealism in the colony in the form of the new camp commander is slowly ground down and eroded throughout the novel. From grandiose plans to turn the colony into a mini France to the realisation that such actions are brimming with futility. The guards maintain a façade of discipline and at times are no better than the men they are guarding. The camp commander is trapped in various bottles of rum. His wife in her own psychosis.
The Colony can be said to be a damning incitement of France’s and Europe’s colonial past. Far from bettering the lot of the colonised peoples, the underlings of imperial governments were forced to face the fact that their fate and those of the people they ruled were intertwined.
Part Papillion, part One Hundred Years of Solitude, Colony will be enjoyed by those readers who wish themselves to be taken on quite a different intellectual pathway.
Labels: Colony by Hugo Wilcken
Friday, May 29, 2009
In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Raymond Chandler's death, Penguin Books have republished five of his novels in hard backed editions, with original covers; “The Big Sleep", "The Lady In The Lake", "The Little Sister", "The Long Goodbye” and "Farewell, My Lovely".“Farewell, My Lovely” is set in Los Angeles in the late 1930’s .Philip Marlowe PI is working on a case in Central Avenue when he comes across a rather large well-dressed man standing outside a dine and dice emporium. The man, whom we later learn is named Moose Molloy, has spent the last eight years in prison. He is only just released and has returned to the emporium looking for his girlfriend who was employed as a singer there. Marlowe is literally dragged into the case and after Molloy’s initial enquiries which leave one man dead decides to investigate further.
Philip Marlowe though rises above all the grubbiness he sees about him. He is a former employee of the Los Angeles DA who was sacked for questioning his employers. He operates under his own moral code. He is an alcoholic, a loner who is bitter at the direction the good and the great have taken Los Angeles. When dealing with the police Marlowe treats them to a procession of contemptible wisecracks.
With ease he can see right through society’s facades. He has little time for falsehood and ineptitude and for Marlowe virtue itself should be its own reward. Marlowe is in no way a starry eyed idealist. He knows the manner in which the rancid system works.
However Marlowe is not some hard as nails superman. Twice toward the end of the novel he describes himself as being frightened and in one instance starts babbling. Finally piece by piece through a series of ingenious detective work and pure grit the case is solved, though for the philosophical Philip Marlowe the result is far from satisfactory.
Throughout the case Marlowe encounters a whole range of police officers. The inept that don't really care, those who want to change the system from within and other naturally good but who find themselves constantly written out of the picture.
By the standards of today parts of the novel can in now way said to be pc. For instance a black man is murdered and the official police response is noncommittal to say the least. Also several derogatory names, which would be unacceptable now are used when describing racial minorities, though this should in no way detract from the readers overall enjoyment and appreciation of the novel.
Chandler's writing will constantly amaze and beguile the reader. For instance here Marlowe describes one character in the case "He looked as nervous as a brick wall". Or his commentary on justice and its relationship to money in Los Angeles "Law is where you buy it in this town". Or finally when travelling by night through the mountains "Far off the sea flickered. Darkness prowled slowly on the hills".
Marlowe’s character and his force of personality drives the novel. His quest for justice and the travails he endures make us sympatric to his cause and the reader is left willing him toward a rewarding conclusion to the case. Detective Philip Marlowe is unique in the literary world and in him Chandler has created a template which others have imitated time and time again. With a fictional character as memorable as Philip Marlowe, combined with writing as sharp as the LA night, "Farewell, My Lovely" is guaranteed to retain it enduring popularity.
Labels: Farewall, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler. A review.
