Books read in July / August
Aug. 29th, 2011 08:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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nwhyte's diligent reading of the various Hugo nominees, for the foreseeable future (i.e. until I get bored with them) I'll be tackling novels longlisted for this year's Crime Writers Association Dagger Awards. There are three categories - the CWA Gold Dagger for the Best Crime Novel of the Year, the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for the Best Thriller of the Year, and the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger for the Best New Crime Writer of the Year. (The four finalists in each category have been announced since I started my read-a-thon.)
15) The Cobra by Frederick Forsyth (Steel, Longlisted)
16) The Dead Women of Juarez by Sam Hawken (New Blood, Finalist)
17) Snowdrops by A D Miller (Gold Finalist, Booker Prize Longlisted)
18) The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Gold and Steel Finalist)
I read a new Frederick Forsyth every ten years or so, just to see if he will ever get back to the standards he set with The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File, which captured my imagination when I first read them twenty years ago or so. Alas, The Cobra is only notable for a chapter three cameo from a certain Old Etonian PM and his lovely wife, Samantha. Characterisation is either from stock types or non-existent - although the tech spec side (i.e. why a Buccaneer is the perfect plane to mount sorties against drug cartel shipments) is as enthusiastic as ever.
Sam Hawken's book is, by contrast, exactly the sort of thing I'd hope to come across - a vivid debut that transported me to the heat, hard lives and tough choices of Ciudad Juarez. Compelling, brutal and over far too quickly.
The appearance of Snowdrops on the Booker Prize longlist has been put down to the presence of thriller writer Stella Rimington on the panel - although the lists have shared a nominee in the past, Tom Rob Smith's excellent Child 44. The scene is Moscow, roughly ten years ago, as our first person narrator wilfully gets caught up in financial scams professionally and personally. "Hustle" as if written by Martin Cruz Smith.
Everything you always wanted to know about how to become a safe cracker is revealed in Steve Hamilton's book, the main action of which is set ten years ago (perhaps because safes these days are less likely to have dials and tumbler locks.) Steve Hamilton is a practised hand at keeping the pages turning, and there's a double time line used in the storytelling which I'm sure Steven Moffat would enjoy. (I did too.)
nwhyte's diligent reading of the various Hugo nominees, for the foreseeable future (i.e. until I get bored with them) I'll be tackling novels longlisted for this year's Crime Writers Association Dagger Awards. There are three categories - the CWA Gold Dagger for the Best Crime Novel of the Year, the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for the Best Thriller of the Year, and the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger for the Best New Crime Writer of the Year. (The four finalists in each category have been announced since I started my read-a-thon.)15) The Cobra by Frederick Forsyth (Steel, Longlisted)
16) The Dead Women of Juarez by Sam Hawken (New Blood, Finalist)
17) Snowdrops by A D Miller (Gold Finalist, Booker Prize Longlisted)
18) The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Gold and Steel Finalist)
I read a new Frederick Forsyth every ten years or so, just to see if he will ever get back to the standards he set with The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File, which captured my imagination when I first read them twenty years ago or so. Alas, The Cobra is only notable for a chapter three cameo from a certain Old Etonian PM and his lovely wife, Samantha. Characterisation is either from stock types or non-existent - although the tech spec side (i.e. why a Buccaneer is the perfect plane to mount sorties against drug cartel shipments) is as enthusiastic as ever.
Sam Hawken's book is, by contrast, exactly the sort of thing I'd hope to come across - a vivid debut that transported me to the heat, hard lives and tough choices of Ciudad Juarez. Compelling, brutal and over far too quickly.
The appearance of Snowdrops on the Booker Prize longlist has been put down to the presence of thriller writer Stella Rimington on the panel - although the lists have shared a nominee in the past, Tom Rob Smith's excellent Child 44. The scene is Moscow, roughly ten years ago, as our first person narrator wilfully gets caught up in financial scams professionally and personally. "Hustle" as if written by Martin Cruz Smith.
Everything you always wanted to know about how to become a safe cracker is revealed in Steve Hamilton's book, the main action of which is set ten years ago (perhaps because safes these days are less likely to have dials and tumbler locks.) Steve Hamilton is a practised hand at keeping the pages turning, and there's a double time line used in the storytelling which I'm sure Steven Moffat would enjoy. (I did too.)
