Joseph Zizza
Very refreshing and enlightening and entertaining set of essays. Saunders has the ability to vary his tone widely, from angry masked by humour ( in an essay on the decline of American culture) to fanboy enthusiasm (in a delightful “introduction” to Huckleberry Finn). He does occasionally go on for too long, but this is a small price to pay for the humour, the opening up of the mind, the compassion and humanity infused into each essay. Highly recommended.
I have mixed feelings about this book. It is a good mystery, set away from the usual NY brownstone and featuring a lot of food and discussion of food, as befits a gourmand like Wolfe. But the casual racism (and frequent use of the n-word–though not by Wolfe or Archie) is bothersome and there are references to the Chinese that are not acceptable. It taints an otherwise interesting case and leaves me feeling unwilling to recommend it.
This is the weakest Carr novel I've read. The Merrivale books started out well in the thirties, but the later ones are quasi-comic, discursive and only occasionally mysterious. This one is completely ridiculous: the plot, the relationships, the core conceit–it's just not good, and it could have been a third shorter and lost nothing. Currently has my vote for worst book of Carr's career.
Starts quite promisingly, but once the murder happens, its becomes quite tedious. There is a several-page discussion about how a car could have crashed on a steep road. It goes on forever and concludes that it isn't possible to tell. That describes the book in a way. The detective is methodical and determined, but has suspicions and no evidence. And so we explore every possibility, in some detail before a completely unsuspected and almost irrelevant character turns out to have done it. I have read good things about Lorac, but this book was a very big disappointment. It's full of (now dated) observation about Devon and “country people”, but it is not entertaining or relevant, just background material. I will not be tracking down more Lorac books. This is #27 in the Robert MacDonald mysteries. Not for me! First and last.
A truly odd and unusual book from the artist Leonora Carrington. I guess she shares with Wyndham Lewis the distinction of being among the very few who were both an artist and a writer. This is a crazy ride, from plotting relatives to plots in an “Old Ladies Home”, with stops along the way for a bizarre history of an Abbess who definitely didn't play by the rules, and odd detours into unusual personal histories. But it's fun. Definitely not for the traditional reader.
Edgar Wallace was THE thriller writer in the early part of the twentieth century, and this and The Mind of JG Reeder demonstrate why. Breezy storytelling style (with not infrequent sloppiness) and a flair for creating an atmosphere of murky mystery work well. I enjoyed this, despite its occasional clunkiness. Wallace's personal attitudes would have gotten him “cancelled” in today's world, but his work stands up pretty well for hundred year old stuff.
Entertaining and engaging but stretched out. I estimate its 213 pages could have been reduced to 150 without negatively impacting the story. MacDonald pads it with detailed descriptions of irrelevant things and by spending an inordinate amount of time on the behaviour of the wife of the unjustly convicted prisoner. If I had been his editor, I would have had a long and pointed conversation with the author. Not his best effort by a long shot.
I enjoyed two previous entries in this series, but found this tedious and the narrator/chronicler an infuriatingly stuck up prig whose method of telling the story focused far too much on what he (a willfully blind, narrow-minded, old-fashioned bigot) thinks and not enough on the story or his detective. I know he's “supposed” to be a fool, a kind of Nigel Bruce-style Watson, but there are limits. He's such an ass that he's insufferable, and the book suffers for it. I cannot recommend this, despite the fact that the solution is clever and unexpected.
Quite entertaining and breezily told, but this kind of disappointed me. I've read Heinlein's “big” books, like Stranger, Time Enough and The Moon, and I was expecting something bigger thematically. The main character is one step short of a pedophile and the 1957 perspective on both 1970 and 2000 was wide of the mark in several areas.I didn't hate it, just didn't think it was a masterwork.
Entertaining, clever and very readable. Well-structured and clearly thought out. Fun, intriguing and ultimately frustrating. I couldn't think of anything negative to say except that I felt frustrated at the end and I wasn't sure why, except that maybe it was a cleverly constructed house of cards, and it fell down at the end. But I enjoyed it, so...
This was pleasantly unexpected Why is it some writers are famous after their heyday and others aren't? Farjeon was celebrated in the late “Golden Age”, praised by other mystery novelists of the day, and sold well. Now he's all but forgotten. And until this British Crime Library edition, I was unaware of his existence. This is entertaining, psychologically astute, and very well-structured. Add in a likeable and engaging protagonist and you have a fun and thoroughly enjoyable mystery. Highly recommended. More Farjeon in my future.
Not exactly different, but a slightly unusual twist on the high fantasy model. Characters are rich and full-bodied, and their behaviour is consistent with what they have done before, even when it is unexpected. A slow buildup, as Daniel Abraham creates an atmosphere and a civilisation that is defined well enough for future books in the series and goes in a different direction than might be expected. I'm looking forward to the next entry in the Dagger and Coin series.