Simon Parker
Having peeked over the garden fence at the boys having fun next door, Simon Parker asked if he could come round and play. Intense enthusiasms wax and wane but liberal doses of crime fiction remain a constant and Simon is delighted if somewhat daunted by the ever-growing pile of it dominating the corner of the living room. However, as all civilised people agree, wherever he may wander Simon will always find time to worship at the feet of The Master – Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse.
The Detective Branch, by Andrew Pepper
Reviewed on February 17, 2011
This is in every sense a no-nonsense novel. If that sounds like faint praise, it isn’t meant to. More that Pepper has taken the garden shears to extraneous frills and fancies and made a straight ahead, rip-roaring, muscular story that brooks no diversions or digressions and is all the better for it. Pepper’s trick is [...]
A Lily Of The Field, by John Lawton
Reviewed on December 27, 2010
Writers of ongoing crime stories develop styles in different ways as their series unfold. Most don’t stray far from the original formula and simply bash out episodes of entertainment. Nothing whatsoever wrong with that as either an aspiration or a way to make a living. Honest artisanship – very underrated. Others develop too solipsistically far. [...]
A Capital Crime, by Laura Wilson
Reviewed on October 26, 2010
This terrific book feels like it could be a closing point for Laura Wilson’s 40s and 50s set crime series, featuring my favourite honest copper, Inspector Ted Stratton of West End Central. Hope not, but if it is, it’s a good way to go. Wilson’s two previous Stratton books – Stratton’s War and A Little [...]
The Dead by Charlie Higson & Beyond Exile by JL Bourne
Reviewed on October 13, 2010
Two zombie horror adventure stories, both the second entry into an ongoing series, one a guilty pleasure the other an unadulterated pleasure pure and simple. JL Bourne’s Day By Day Armageddon books shouldn’t work and in many ways they don’t. Beyond Exile, the second in the series, has few in the way of believable characters, [...]
Fatal Lies, by Frank Tallis
Reviewed on October 11, 2010
Why the world embraced the stolid dreck of Jed Rubenfeld’s Interpretation of Murder over Frank Tallis’ infinitely superior Viennese whirls for its Freudian criminal kicks, is way beyond me. In Fatal Lies, the third of Tallis’ series “The Liebermann Papers”, professional psychaiatrist and amateur sleuth Dr Max Liebermann, is once more assisting the Viennese police, [...]
A Not So Perfect Crime, by Teresa Solana
Reviewed on October 8, 2010
Ever since the death of my beloved Manuel Vazquez Montalban, I’ve been awaiting the arrival of a really convincing Spanish crime series to get my teeth stuck in to. Richard Wilson’s books featuring Sevillano detective Javier Falcon came close, but there remained a little expat distance. Disappointingly while my crime shelves groan under the weight [...]
Heartstone, by CJ Sansom
Reviewed on August 28, 2010
Ah, Brother Shardlake, you’re back I see. I haven’t finished Heartstone yet. Truth be told I’m only just halfway through, but I know there are people who will want to know. I dare say there are a few like me who simply need to know. Right now, darn it. Well, for all of these people, [...]
Sacred Treason, by James Forrester
Reviewed on August 2, 2010
Anyone impatiently waiting for their next CJ Sansom fix could do far worse than investigate James Forrester’s excellent new novel Sacred Treason. Set in the early Elizabethan years when it remained unclear if either the young queen or the Protestant faith would last more than five minutes, Sacred Treason does a sterling job bringing to [...]
Eye Of The Red Tsar, by Sam Eastland
Reviewed on July 25, 2010
At last a new crime series to get stuck into, and a page turner to boot. Before the Revolution Inspector Pekkala was The Emerald Eye, the Tsar’s personal special investigator, a legend across the Empire. Now it is 1924 and it is the new Red Tsar, Stalin, who plucks Pekkala from a Siberian hell-hole and [...]
To Kill A Tsar, by Andrew Williams
Reviewed on July 2, 2010
Andrew Williams’s To Kill A Tsar is a fine thriller set in mid 19th Century St Petersburg, as a group of Socialist revolutionaries begin a campaign of terror across the city. Without giving too much away, the title gives a subtle clue as to this group’s primary intention. The book opens with a failed attempt [...]
Hitch-22, by Christopher Hitchens
Reviewed on June 26, 2010
Over the course of 40 years (!) of articles and TV appearances, Christopher Hitchens has established himself as the radical’s radical – or perhaps more accurately, the iconoclast’s iconoclast. He has been, for many, the epitome of a coruscating, globe-trotting political journalist – or perhaps more accurately, The Don of a certain kind of louche, [...]
The Siege Of Krishnapur, by J.G. Farrell
Reviewed on May 23, 2010
Move over EM Forster, move over Paul Scott and move over George MacDonald Fraser. Sterling as your efforts undoubtedly were, JG Farrell’s magnificent book, The Siege Of Krishanapur must surely be the best book ever written about the British in India. A Booker prize winner in 1972, The Siege Of Krishnapur, courtesy of a reissue [...]
The Mask Of Dimitrios, by Eric Ambler
Reviewed on May 12, 2010
Eric Ambler, where have you been all my life? His is a name I knew only as an author who provided source material for a great Orson Welles movie, Journey Into Fear, was rated by a bunch of writers who I like but who is now largely unread. Yet here we are with a fantastic [...]
Apathy For The Devil, by Nick Kent
Reviewed on May 3, 2010
A Very Irregular Head and Apathy For The Devil, two cracking books about two maverick figures from far flung corners of the pop firmament, each in their own way the brightest star in their respective galaxies. Apathy For The Devil, finds Nick Kent, one time enfant terrible of British music journalism, firmly in his anecdotage, relating [...]
Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head, by Rob Chapman
Reviewed on May 3, 2010
A Very Irregular Head and Apathy For The Devil, two cracking books about two maverick figures from far flung corners of the pop firmament, each in their own way the brightest star in their respective galaxies. With each passing day Syd Barrett’s name drifts further into the mainstream background. If he is known by normal people [...]
Inverting The Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics, by Jonathan Wilson
Reviewed on April 22, 2010
Over the last few years there has been a steady rise in the number of books about football. The list of authors is no longer confined to dilettante, arriviste, wanky media luvvies and fanboy geeks but is instead open to those who simply take the subject seriously without patronising or playing to the lowest common [...]
Homer & Langley, by EL Doctorow
Reviewed on March 19, 2010
EL Doctorow has been at the forefront of American fiction for the best part of 40 years, telling epic stories of America as it was forged in the early part of the 20th Century. Ever since The Book Of Daniel in 1971 Doctorow has mashed up fact and fiction, told of an America shaped for [...]
The Snowman, by Jo Nesbo
Reviewed on March 17, 2010
So here we go with The Snowman – confirmation, if confirmation were needed, that Jo Nesbo is the new King of Scandinavian crime. For those who recently completed their Stieg Larsson and need something equally toothsome, look no further than Nesbo’s Harry Hole books. For those underwhelmed by the new Henning Mankell, relax, there are [...]
The English Civil Wars, by Blair Worden
Reviewed on March 12, 2010
Terrific primer of who did what, when and to whom for an inexplicably underrepresented period of British history. You would think the years 1640-1660 would be a perma-fixture on school curriculums and pulse through the collective cultural consciousness. After all the story has everything – a despotic King, impassioned parliamentary debate, a truly uncivil Civil [...]
If The Dead Rise Not, by Philip Kerr
Reviewed on February 24, 2010
The sixth but to my mind the least successful of Philip Kerr’s fantastic Bernie Gunther series. As has been the way since Bernie Gunther’s return in A Quiet Flame, the action in If The Dead Rise Not is split between Berlin in the 30s and Latin America in the 1950s. Gunther is still a hugely [...]
Stettin Station, by David Downing
Reviewed on February 3, 2010
Across three books David Downing has, with Zoo, Silesian and now Stettin Station, created a series of Europe-on-the-brink spy novels that are as claustrophobic and tense as anything this side of a great Alan Furst. Books set in the run up to the Second World War may be a ten a penny publisher’s staple these days [...]
The Minutes Of The Lazarus Club, by Tony Pollard
Reviewed on January 28, 2010
Enjoyable if slight historical thriller treading the well worn paths of Victorian London to create an atmospheric story of murder and espionage. The Lazarus Club is a secret talking shop for some of the brightest minds of the age. Surgeon George Phillips is invited to join by none other than Isambard Kingdom Brunel, currently obsessed [...]
Blood’s A Rover, by James Ellroy
Reviewed on January 25, 2010
In the 80s and 90s James Ellroy defined modern American noir. Seminal books such as LA Confidential, The Black Dahlia and White Jazz with their hard-boiled mix of hipster speak, clipped stream of conciousness prose and a paranoid, parallel hinterland of pseudo history set the template for an entire, reinvigorated genre. Ellroy placed American noir [...]
An Empty Death, by Laura Wilson, and The Interrogator, by Andrew Williams
Reviewed on January 12, 2010
Two excellent wartime thrillers, but each one quite different in its approach to the genre. Laura Wilson’s An Empty Death is the second book to feature detective Ted Stratton. The first outing, Stratton’s War, was a good debut, albeit one owing a fair amount to the John Lawton’s Frederick Troy books. An Empty Death is an altogether [...]
Simon P’s Books Of The Year 2009
Reviewed on December 18, 2009
The It’s Good To Have You Back Guys Award Thomas Pynchon and James Ellroy both did stirling work in shaking off the cobwebs with Inherent Vice and Blood’s A Rover respectively, but the award must go to Iain Pears for Stone’s Fall. Ten years after his fantastic An Instance Of The Fingerpost (probably the book [...]
The Duff Cooper Diaries, edited by John Julius Norwich
Reviewed on December 10, 2009
I like a diary. There’s something about immediacy that gives a different type of insight into people and events. Why do they do it? Motivations differ. Some diarists keep a weather eye on history’s judgment, while others settle scores with self justification often near the surface. One thing they have in common is that great [...]
The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, by Richard Dawkins
Reviewed on November 24, 2009
One of the great shames of modern life is that Richard Dawkins is, for the time being, lost to the noise of the intense argument surrounding him. To be fair, he does more than his bit to generate this noise and to some, persuasion has long since given way to antagonism. To these people, even [...]
Classic Football Debates Settled Once & For All by Danny Baker & Danny Kelly, and The Have I Got News For You Guide To Modern Britain
Reviewed on November 20, 2009
The world, it could be argued, is divided into thems that read on the toilet and thems that don’t. To be fair a tendency for throne reading is largely dictated by chromosomes, because this is a battle of the sexes to rank with control of the thermostat and possession of the TV remote. Those on [...]
Strange Days Indeed, by Francis Wheen, and When The Lights Went Out, by Andy Beckett
Reviewed on November 11, 2009
Strange Days Indeed is follow up to How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World, the book that explored, hilariously, how the modern world is under the sway of multi-form unreason, from homeopathy to conspiracy. It was the story of a world as it is thirty years after the twin Year Zero revolutions started by Thatcher and [...]
Halfway To Hollywood, by Michael Palin, and My Shit Life So Far, by Frankie Boyle
Reviewed on November 6, 2009
Can the human mind conceive of two more disparate comedic performers than Frankie Boyle and Michael Palin? One, a psychotic motormouth at perma risk of being banned for some monstrous overstepping of the mark. The other, the epitome of the most underrated of middle class virtues, enthusiasm and decency. My Shit Life So Far vs [...]
CWA Ellis Peters Award for Historical Crime Fiction
Reviewed on October 31, 2009
So to Fitzrovia for the announcement of the tenth annual CWA Ellis Peters Award for Historical Crime Fiction, which this year goes to Philip Kerr’s If The Dead Rise Not. It’s only just out so I have not yet read it, but if it’s up to the mark of his previous Bernie Gunther books, then [...]
Inherent Vice, by Thomas Pynchon
Reviewed on October 26, 2009
Like book geeks the world over, I have a small number of titles that mean a lot to me and bear regular, repeat reading. This year I have, for the umpteenth time, revisited Nathanael West’s wonderful book of desperation and boredom set in a 1930s Hollywood demi-monde, The Day Of The Locust, as it seemed [...]
The Brutal Telling, by Louise Penny
Reviewed on October 20, 2009
This strange book had me going all the way to the finish line. Three Pines is an artistic community in rural Quebec. Surrounded by thousands of square miles of forest it is cut off from 9-5 civilisation and has become an idyll for a rag bag troupe of escapees from the grind of city life. [...]
Occupied City, by David Peace
Reviewed on October 13, 2009
I get the James Ellroy crossed with Stan Barstow schtick David Peace has been perfecting since the earliest days of The Red Riding Quartet. I also very much got the epic Lear-like grandeur of The Damned Utd. I’ve done my David Peace time, and I have enjoyed tracing the arc of his storytelling as each [...]
How We Live and Why We Die: The Secret Lives of Cells, by Lewis Wolpert
Reviewed on October 5, 2009
As Ian Dury once put it: there ain’t half been some clever bastards. Having read How We Live And Why We Die, I think it is fair to say Lewis Wolpert must be one of these lucky bleeders. Wolpert is Emiritus Professor of Biology at the University of London, was Chair of the Committee For [...]
Why England Lose by Kuper and Szymanski, and Englischer Fussball, by Raphael Honigstein
Reviewed on September 25, 2009
Despite the paucity of its coverage within the overwhelming majority of sports media, the literature of football has for a long time thrown up some really interesting reads. Particularly engaging are the ones that come from left-field, or put another way, the ones the nationals wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. Why England Lose is [...]
A Visible Darkness, by Michael Gregorio
Reviewed on September 23, 2009
“Michael Gregorio” is the nom de plume of a husband and wife writing team specialising in superior historical crime fiction set in Prussia during the Enlightenment. Anyone looking for reassurance their reading matter is of a slightly higher brow than the usual genre fodder, could do far worse than dive into A Visible Darkness, the [...]
For Richer, For Poorer by Victoria Coren
Reviewed on September 17, 2009
For Richer For Poorer is the thoroughly enjoyable memoir of a life spent playing poker by the poster girl for all things BBC4, Victoria Coren. Who would have thought that such a memoir, written by a fully-fledged member of the BBC media classes, could be so engaging? The poker boom is already a few years [...]
D-Day: The Battle For Normandy, by Anthony Beevor
Reviewed on September 14, 2009
Having revitalised military history with his peerless account of the battle of Stalingrad in, er, Stalingrad, Anthony Beevor has since gone on to deliver equally successful books about the fall of Berlin and the Spanish Civil War. Now it is the turn of the Normandy campaign to receive the full Beevor treatment and boys of [...]
Tattoo, by Manuel Vazquez Montalban
Reviewed on September 10, 2009
Tattoo is an early, 1974 work by the Spanish crime master Manuel Vazquez Montalban that has recently been translated by the good people at Serpent’s Tail publishing. For readers of Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano novels, this is where the Sicilian detective got his name, idiosyncracies and plots. Camilleri may have written a number of enjoyable [...]
We Saw Spain Die, by Paul Preston
Reviewed on September 7, 2009
Seventy years after the fact comes a reminder to democratic liberals everywhere that some things – including some ideas – are on occasion worth fighting for. The fall of the Spanish Republic in 1939 at the hands of Franco’s Nationalists following three years of bitter civil war, has long been a favourite subject for Western liberals [...]
Moriarty, by John Gardner
Reviewed on August 10, 2009
Spin-offs of major novels featuring either the hero or secondary characters are nothing new. Rarely approaching the level of the host books but still being somehow fun, they were generally a guilty pleasure back then and remain so today. John Gardner was at this game for years, having banged out a lengthy run of post-Ian [...]
Voodoo Histories, by David Aaronovitch
Reviewed on July 30, 2009
Doing for idiotic conspiracy theories what Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science did for idiotic alternative medicine, David Aaronovitch’s Voodoo Histories is a surgical dissection of what has unfortunately become one of the defining philosophies of the day. Most of us have been out and about when an otherwise normal-sounding bloke – it’s always a bloke – [...]
The Dead Of Winter, by Rennie Airth and Second Violin, by John Lawton
Reviewed on July 27, 2009
The popularity of the Second World War detective genre shows no signs of abating and here are two recent examples of series covering similar ground – albeit with differing degrees of success. With The Dead Of Winter, Rennie Airth’s trilogy covering the exploits of Inspector John Madden has reached London in 1944. The series has followed [...]
Coward At The Bridge, by James Delingpole
Reviewed on July 3, 2009
Coward at the Bridge is James Delingpole’s follow up to last year’s Coward On The Beach. Where Coward on The Beach was a comic book D-Day story, Coward At The Bridge is a comic book Arnhem story. No detective work required to spot a nascent series under development. Coward On The Beach was a novelist’s adaptation of [...]
Stone’s Fall by Iain Pears
Reviewed on June 25, 2009
A decade ago Iain Pears wrote An Instance Of The Fingerpost, a dazzling, intricately plotted story of murder, Restoration politics, religious dissent, maths, espionage and the discovery of the circulation of the blood by William Harvey in 1663. Its ambitious structure saw the same story told from four different perspectives, each adding and subtracting to [...]
The Spies Of Warsaw, by Alan Furst
Reviewed on June 18, 2009
That’s more like it. Alan Furst speacialises in taut espionage stories set in Europe during the run up to the Second World War. Since publishing the first of these, Night Soldiers, in 1989 Furst can stake a legitimate claim to having revitalised the entire spy fiction genre. Now twenty years on he writes in a [...]
Bad Vibes, by Luke Haines
Reviewed on June 15, 2009
Bad Vibes is a first person, “I was that soldier” account of a life lived on the front line of the indie pop wars of the early 1990s. The story is necessarily a small one and our guide is petty, abusive, egocentric and a borderline sociopath. Things are not initially promising. But luckily Luke Haines [...]
The Maze Of Cadiz, by Aly Monroe
Reviewed on June 12, 2009
You can read an extract from this book at our sister site, Bookhugger.co.uk. What at first sight appears to be a cash-in on the recent success of Winter in Madrid, turns out to be the start of a new wartime spy series in the tradition of Eric Ambler and Alan Furst. The title does not lie, [...]
Ice Cold, by Andrea Maria Schenkel
Reviewed on May 26, 2009
Andrea Maria Schenkel’s Ice Cold is a darkly unsettling crime novel set in Thirties Germany with the unique twist that Nazis play virtually no part whatsoever. Instead this is a grim tale of rape, murder, fragile dreams and lost lives – and a sad and desperate story it is too. The novel begins with an [...]
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Simon Kernick
Simon Kernick is one of Britain’s most exciting new thriller writers. He arrived on the crime writing scene with his highly acclaimed debut novel The Business of Dying, the story of a corrupt cop moonlighting as a hitman. However, Simon’s big breakthrough came with his novel Relentless which was selected by Richard and Judy for [...]
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