On six occasions, his enemies had tried shooting him; twice, they'd attempted poison (once using a samosa laced with arsenic); and during the Case of the Pundit with Twelve Toes, a hired thug had tried to force Puri's car over the edge of a hairpin bend on the road to Gulmarg.
# Permanent link to “Saala, maaderchod!”*
The most ingenious attempt had been orchestrated by a cunning murderer (a naturalist by profession) working in Assam's Kaziranga Park, who had secretly sprayed Puri's clothes with a pheromone that attracted one-horned rhinos.
The closest anyone had come (not including the three rhinos, who could move surprisingly quickly) had been a criminal hijra who had pushed a pile of bricks off the top of a building into an alley in Varanasi where Puri had been walking.
Two men lay dead on a battlefield and one said “Hey!”
# Permanent link to War novel? Vampire novel? No, it’s just Peter Lovesey again.
You must understand, whoever you are, that in those days Rome, mistress of half the world, was a place as savage as a village of Nile pygmies.
Thus providing employment for our narrator, one Decius Caecilius Metellus, young commander of what passes for local law enforcement in his district of the city of the seven hills, circa 70BC. As John Maddox Roberts’ The King’s Gambit begins, someone is committing arson and garroting manumitted gladiators and rich freedman in Rome. In a plot that moves from simple murder to outright treason and threatens his own life, Decius’ investigation takes him into a Senator’s sister’s bed, to a brushing acquaintance with pirates (those same pirates who betrayed Spartacus, and here we find out why) all the way up to the Senate, including its two Consuls, Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.
Yes, that Crassus and that Pompey. One of the most enjoyable things about this series (which now numbers thirteen) is the cameo appearances by characters right out of the history books, like Gaius Julius Caesar (yes, that Caesar), as in
The new calendar was one of Caesar’s better ideas. (At least, he called it his calendar. It was Cleopatra’s court astronomer, Sosigenes, who actually created it, and in truth it was Caesar’s own neglect of his duties when he was Pontifex Maximus that got the old calendar into such dreadful shape in the first place. That’s something you won’t find in the histories written later by his lackeys.)
Ouch. But Decius gives the devil his due, too, as here
Hortalus gave very florid speeches, in what was known as the Asiatic style. He wrote the same way...Such writing reads very strangely now, since Caesar’s bald and unornamented yet elegant style revolutionized Latin prose. Between them, Caesar’s books and Cicero’s speeches utterly changed the language as it was taught in my youth.
The period detail is great, too, as when Decius goes to Ostia to interview a witness
From each shop front and storehouse came the fragrances of the whole Mediterranean world. Incense and spices were stored here, and rare, fragrant woods. The odors of fresh-sawn cedar from the Levant and pulverized pepper from even farther east mingled with those of frankincense from Egypt and oranges from Spain. It smelled like Empire.
Decius is an engaging character, not the ambitious social climber you’d expect from a young Roman on his way up, but a good man whose motivation to solve these crimes, as he confesses to his vestal virgin aunt, comes from not wanting to see innocent slaves crucified in lieu of the actual murderer.
Yet another true detail of soon to be imperial Rome that will make you glad you’re enjoying this story in a comfortable chair in your living room two thousand years later, and not living through it yourself.
# Permanent link to The Senate and People of Rome
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The setting is England. The first novel, River of Darkness, takes place soon after World War I, where a serial killer is charging into rural homes and slaughtering entire families. The second novel, The Blood-Dimmed Tide, takes place a decade later, in the depths of the Great Depression, and a homicidal maniac is targeting young girls for rape and murder. The third novel, The Dead of Winter (love that title), takes place in 1944, after D-Day but before the Battle of the Bulge, and an assassin for hire laying low in England during the war stumbles across a witness to one of his jobs who got away and leaves a trail of dead bodies behind him in a bloody search for the one person living who can testify against him.
The central figure of these novels is John Madden, first a detective inspector for Scotland Yard and then a farmer who in spite of himself is drawn back into the two subsequent cases. There are other great characters, too, Chief Inspector Angus Sinclair, John's boss, Billy Styles the boot constable, Helen Blackwell, the local doctor (love that name, too, Airth's done his homework) and many others, and part of the genius of these novels is that we get to see how things turn out for everyone because we are dropped into their lives at ten-year intervals.
Another reason I love these books is that Airth doesn't force us inside the minds of the killers (I am so sick of that). No, we learn about the villains one tiny piece of information at a time, just like the detectives do. These are police procedurals every bit as good as and maybe even better than Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series, and I never ever thought I'd say that about any novels.
Instead, Airth takes us into the lives of the victims, fully fleshed characters who are practically neighbors by the time he's done with them, and by then you're so worried about whether the good guys are going to get there in time that you're on the edge of your seat.
The setting is a you-are-there trip back to England in the 20's, 30's and 40's, and again, because we get to drop in once a decade we get to see how things turn out. The first novel is all about the cost of war, to John and to the nation. If you teach a natural born killer how to kill in war, what do you think he's going to get up to when you declare peace? The second novel is about what the powers that be will do to maintain that peace, and you will be every bit as disgusted as Angus is when you find out what they are willing to sacrifice in the name of national security. (Fuckers.) The third novel makes full use of world war as a plot device (there is a harrowing scene where the cops are about to make a raid and get blown up by a doodlebug instead), with fascinating detail of what it was like to live in London as well as the countryside during that time.
I just made a friend with a new iPad download River of Darkness, so they're available as e-books, too. Go get 'em.
You know why I picked up the first of these books? Because many years ago, I stumbled across a paperback copy of another book Rennie Airth wrote, called Snatch.
It's sort of a modern day Ransom of Red Chief, and it is hilarious. It isn't on Kindle yet and you can't have my copy, but there are a bunch of used copies on Bookfinder.com.
# Permanent link to The Return of Rennie Airth
This Friday the film based on Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games opens, and we can only hope it is even half as good as the book. My review on Goodreads [SPOILER ALERT]:
This is a horrifyingly good book, so much so that I had to put it down twice and walk away before I could continue for fear of what would happen next. In a dystopian future US, there is no bread and only one circus, the Hunger Games, in which 24 "tributes" (forced volunteers) duel to the death on camera with the whole world watching whether they want to or not.
The narrator is a 16-year old girl, Katniss, the sole support of her mother and 10-year old sister back home. Her sister is chosen in the reaping and Katniss volunteers to take her place in the Games. The plot is like American Idol crossed with Survivor, only in this case children are killing children as a national spectator sport. By the last page you know what it was like at the Coliseum, from both the cheap seats and the floor of the arena. A riveting read.
And this is what I wrote about the third book in the trilogy, Mockingjay:
This is what Collins means these books to be about, right here
...Something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children's lives to settle its differences...The truth is, it benefits no one to live in a world where these things happen.It sure doesn't. These three books work on several levels. First and foremost, they're a riveting read, an action/adventure tale that sweeps you along from first page to last. Katniss is a wonderful character, smart, strong, stubborn, taught by a hard life to have exactly the right skills she needs to survive the Games. Collins made an inspired choice to let Katniss tell her own story in first person present tense, which lends just that much more verisimilitude and immediacy to every event, without any assurance that anyone, Katniss included, is going to survive those events. You're on the edge of your seat for the whole narrative. Taken simply as pure, breathless entertainment, these books totally rock.
Second, not only does Katniss kick serious ass, she instinctively says and does the right thing when everything is on the line. She's a role model I'd be happy for any girl to aspire to. Or any woman, for that matter. I love Harry Potter, I do, but it's always bugged me, just a little, that the books weren't about Hermione. I know, I know, teachers and librarians say you can't get boys to read books about girls, but let me tell you, I've made grown men read these books and they can't put them down. So maybe the Hunger Games books are the beginning of a paradigm shift in reading habits. I so hope so.
Thirdly, Collins has a message. She puts these randomly selected kids into an arena to kill each other on a homicidal version of American Idol, all to serve as an annual object lesson that furthers the political stranglehold of the Capitol on the twelve Districts. By not flinching away from just how brutal those deaths are, she puts us personally on the battlefield. I can still see that spear going through Rue. Man, I can hear it.
How many Rues does the human race sacrifice before we figure out how to live with each other? I think Peeta was onto something, Katniss says, about us destroying one another and letting some decent species take over. Because really, I think Collins is saying, what is the alternative? Children dying.
The best science fiction is more than just a good story, and these books are an exemplar of the "if this goes on" trope. Collins is holding up a mirror and showing us exactly who we are.
I really like the ending, too, and not just because I was a Peeta girl from The Hunger Games on. Again, Katniss did the right thing like she always does and took down the right person. Her way back from everything that has happened to her is long and filled with pain and grief. This isn't a happily ever after, and it shouldn't be.
But, boy, it is a good read.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kij2kzRC_YA&w=640&h=360]
# Permanent link to No Bread and One Circus
He had worn [his gun] on duty on only three occasions in his ten years in the Police Municipale. The first was when a rabid dog had been sighted in a neighboring commune...The second was when the president of France had driven through St. Denis on his way to see the celebrated cave pantings of Lascaux nearby...The third time was when a boxing kangaroo escaped from a local circus. On no occasion had Bruno’s gun ever been used on duty, a fact of which he was extremely but privately proud.
# Permanent link to Miss Marple meets A Year in Provence
Good characterization and good period detail make Judith Rock's The Rhetoric of Death an engaging read. It's France, 1686, in the middle of Louis XIV's secretly continued persecution of the Protestant Huguenots. Jesuit father-in-training Charles du Lac connives at the escape to Protestant Switzerland of Huguenot cousin (and childhood love) Pernelle. For his -- and their -- own safety fearful relatives hustle him out of southern France to Paris, where he takes up a position at the Jesuit college Louis Le Grand. Trouble follows him, however -- a student is murdered, the student's brother attacked, and Charles is caught up in a power-play between religion and politics that reaches as high as the Sun King's own court, and he must navigate it safely and see the guilty brought to justice if he and his family are to survive.
In the author's note Rock says, "I have tried to make the story's people true to their own century, and not just us in costume." She succeeded.
# Permanent link to Jesuits in Love (and Murder)
Update on June 12, 2012: Now FREE on Kindle! Click here to download.
# Permanent link to That’s FRY-knee
Old Home Town by Rose Wilder Lane
My rating: 3 of 5 starsLane really, really didn't like the small town America in which she was raised, and in particular she didn't like the lifestyle it forced upon the women living it.
The first chapter is a beautifully written indictment of the nameless Midwestern town in which the story is set. Parochial, insular, stuffy, middle-brow, Lane's old home town is obsessed with what is proper and especially what isn't.
The rest of the chapters are stories told by a young girl named Ernestine about other women who live there, and most of them are pretty easily identifiable as wish fulfillment on the part of the author. The old maid escaping seduction by town ne'er-do-well by her own pluck and the timely appearance of a new suitor. The hired girl forced by gossip to marry the husband when the wife dies, which ends about as well as you might expect. A wife who leaves her husband and goes on to become a couturier. The selfish old woman who lies about her daughter being fast to her daughter's suitor so he'll jilt her and she'll have someone at home to take care of her. Ernestine's "fast friend" Elsie falls for a traveling man with disastrous results. The town beauty elopes with a hayseed, and a mother sells her beautiful daughter to the highest bidder, with homicidal results.
In the last chapter, Ernestine has finally had enough (and so have we) and against the wishes of her parents leaves home for school in NYC. You don't so much as cheer as think, "What took you so long?"
Lane writes
...there were two clear ways to flaunt one's loss of modesty and virtue; one was to wear red, the other was to be seen needlessly gadding around uptown.
Makes me want to put on my reddest outfit and prance right up town. I'm certain that was exactly how she meant me to feel.
Click here to read all my reviews on Goodreads.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5IABqwVO2U&w=480&h=390]
# Permanent link to The Old Home Town Don’t Look the Same
It is a quite staggering reflection that when Cook left Canada for the last time in 1767, he was still a non-commissioned officer. It is also a staggering reflection on the Lords of the Admiralty of the time that, because of their innate snobbish conviction that officers and gentlemen are born and not made, Cook did not quite qualify for a commission. He had been in the despised Merchant Service, he had sailed before the mast in the Navy, he was poor and his origins were obscure. There could have been little doubt left in the Admiralty by that time that in Cook they had the greatest seaman, navigator and cartographer of the generation. But a commission? Hardly. Hardly, that is, until they realised that to send a naval vessel to circumnavigate the globe, in the greatest exploratory voyage ever undertaken, under the command of a non-commissioned officer wouldn't be quite the thing to do. For one thing, it would redound most dreadfully upon the alleged competence of those who did hold commissions, and, for another, it would not look good in the history books. So, belatedly, they made him a lieutenant.
# Permanent link to Captain Cook, the Alistair MacLean version