Thoughts on Spycatcher

I didn't get much sleep last night, mainly because once I picked Spycatcher up I could not put it down.  The author Matthew Dunn used to work for MI6 so for authenticity it's right up there with my other favourite used-to-be-a-spy-author Noah Boyd.  The story, pacing and characterization are perfectly pitched and the fact that hero/antihero Will Cochrane isn't just a womanizing blunt instrument just adds to the idea that this is right here right now.

Interesting that William Morrow are publishing Dunn as they also publish Noah Boyd's books.  Is there a spies only imprint coming to WM?  Spycatcher lands in August - full review then.

Thougts on the Keeper of Lost Causes

Stieg Larsson opened the floodgates for Scandinavian Crime - Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen is a rollercoaster ride and I look forward to many more cases for Denmark's Department Q.  Published in August, I'll post a full review then.

In writing news book #3 has suffered a set-back.  On re-reading, the beginning jerks around like a ruddy puppet. I've had to bin it and start again.

Also entered 'Rollover' into the Luke Mead Bursary last week.  Luke was in his mid thirties when he died and his family along with Legend press have set up a bursary in his name to help struggling writers with their careers.  White Summer -his first novel - isn't readily available over here but abe has some copies so I'll be able to get hold of one soon.


Now back to the books.  Next is Spycatcher by Matthew Dunn - I've been dying to read this.

You never know

who is going to walk through the door during any one shift.  We had a couple come in yesterday and we got chatting as I checked them out, and he mentioned that he'd done a reading at the store a while back so I asked him what the title of his book was and he says 'Up in the Air' the one they made into a movie with George Clooney. 

Me: (frantically searching the author database in my head) You're Walter? Walter Kirn?
Him : Yep Walter Kirn, nice to meet you.

Nice guy and hopefully we can get him for his new book.

Three, two, one, Go!

Been travelling and seriously deprived of wi-fi.  My plan was to post as normal but lack of said wi fi put that plan straight to bed. Things had been pretty quiet before I left but I had to hit the ground running yesterday.  My blurb for The Hypnotist was selected for the indie next list for July.  I've got another e interview to do with Matt Richtel - author of Hooked and the new one Devil's Plaything.  And a really great author event - hopefully in August - that I don't want to jinx but once it's confirmed I'll post the details here.  Oh and two blurbs which while they aren't seriously urgent still have to take priority and I have to work this afternoon.  Hope I don't yawn too much!

PJ Tracy #4

I was told that here the series slows down, but as long as you realize a couple of things that's not true.  First of all I'm not a shipper for Grace and Leo, their relationship is always going to progress at snail's pace, second the beginning of this book makes more sense once you're almost finished and third, the mother daughter combo set up scenarios that don't play out as they would in other books.  Will put #5 on order.

Now I have three arcs - all blurbed so no rush - and the third in Matt Reilly's Jack West Jr series and to be honest I'd rather read than exercise.

The White Devil, Justin Evans

Young American, Andrew Taylor’s father has bought his son’s way into Harrow School in the heart of London.  If Andrew gets thrown out of this school he’ll be cut off without a cent.  Hidden away in the confines of Harrow, Andrew resolves to buckle down and not get into trouble but trouble finds him.  Everyone at Harrow has heard of the ‘The Lot Ghost’ but Andrew’s connection to it is becoming stronger by the hour.  This presence, is volatile and insanely jealous and it can kill.

When Andrew is recruited into a play about Lord Byron, he realizes that his resemblance to Byron has fooled the ghost into believing his lover has returned and this time he will stop at nothing to possess him.

Prophecy, S.J. Parris

In this, the second of the Giordano Bruno series, the heretic philosopher still retains his status as friend of the French king while maintaining his role as Francis Walsingham’s spy.   

Walsingham enlists Bruno’s investigative talents on an urgent royal request.  One of Queen Elizabeth’s young favourites has been found dead with strange astrological symbols carved upon the body.  Bruno thinks that the murderer is closer to the Queen than even Walsingham realizes.  To prove this he has to sift through a welter of rumours, black magic, lies and multiple hidden agendas to expose a Catholic plot to remove Elizabeth and take over England by force and to make matters worse Bruno has caught the eye of one of his Catholic co-conspirators, the French ambassador’s lovely young wife.

The Preacher, Camilla Lackberg

In the Swedish coastal town of Fjallbacka, a July heatwave is stewing the local population and unearthing old bones.  In the summer of ’79 after two campers went missing, the only solid lead in the case took his own life.  When three bodies are discovered at a local beauty spot twenty three years later Detective Patrik Hedstrom  - weeks away from becoming a father - takes on the most baffling case of his career so far.  The evidence leads him back to the original suspect - Johannes Hult.  But Hult’s surviving family hate the police more than they hate each other.  And then another girl goes missing…

Devil’s Plaything, Matt Richtel

Matt’s last thriller Hooked introduced us to journalist Nat Idle.  Nat is now a blogger for Medblog but he does have a habit of exposing the police to public scrutiny so when someone takes a potshot at him in Golden Gate Park he’s concerned ; but more concerned because he had his Grandma Lane with him and just before the shooting started Lane said ‘danger’

Lane is in a nursing home since her mind dropped off a cliff. She’s trying to record her personal history using a computer program called the Human Memory Crusade. Lane advocated the program and got the director to sign up. He didn’t argue too much because the computers didn’t cost him a thing.

Nat, worried that something is happening to his grandmother starts to investigate and uncovers a military funded conspiracy that takes the internet into the 22^nd century using organic assets and they’ve already sourced a unwitting supply.  Nat’s just learned he’s about to become an adult and settle down but he just can’t leave the story alone.  It may be the last one he ever files.

Stagestruck, Peter Lovesey

Dying on stage takes on a whole new meaning.

The first night of the sold-out run of I am a Camera at Bath's Theatre Royal was a sensation for all the wrong reasons.  Fading pop star Clarion Calhoun didn’t get the chance to utter a single line of Sally Bowles' dialogue before someone dealt her a career-ending blow.  DI Diamond is pulled into the investigation as a favour to the Chief Constable and pushes through several personal phobias to a hotbed of jealousy, insecurities and superstition both onstage and off.  

In this play it isn't what you know but who you know that could kill you.

In The Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson

Erik Larson has that rare gift of making non fiction read like fiction.  His latest book is set mainly in Berlin during 1933 and 1934, charting the ascent of Hitler and the transformation of Germany as seen through the eyes of Ambassador William E Dodd, and his daughter Martha. 

Dodd - a history professor - not a natural choice for a diplomatic post – is sent to Germany.  The whole family transplants to a vibrant Berlin.  On the surface the capital is booming, but scratch beneath and slowly, with each bill of ‘co-ordination’ passed, each atrocity ignored, each show trial, each protestation of peace-while preparing for war, the horror of Hitler’s Germany emerges and Dodd like a political Cassandra attempts to warn his fellow Americans but they don’t want to listen.  A riveting read. 

Psychopath Test, Jon Ronson

Ever heard of a high functioning psychopath?  Neither had I until I read this book.  Jon Ronson journalist and author of Them and The Men Who Stare At Goats is asked to investigate a strange hoax but Ronson doesn’t stop there, he begins to investigate madness.  Could it be faked?  And if you can fake madness does that make you a psychopath.  Ronson’s trip down the rabbit hole includes visits to Broadmoor prison, Gothenburg, Sweden. Shubuta, Mississippi, a dead town.  Ocala, Florida, the home of the man that killed it, Wales and East Grinstead and the murky world of TV reality shows, where there’s crazy and there’s the right kind of crazy.

Ronson’s weapon in his quest to root out psychopaths?  The Hare PCL-R Checklist – p97 of the book. 

Seven new releases

Run - don't walk - to your local indie bookstore and pick these up.

Case Histories going from book to TV

Just caught a preview for the new season dramas from the BBC. The one that caught my eye Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie is headed for the small screen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/07_july/26/scotland.shtml