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Books read in November / December
Dec. 31st, 2012 01:01 pm26) The Maze of Cadiz, by Aly Monroe
27) Washington Shadow, by Aly Monroe
28) Zoo Station, by David Downing
29) The Rage, by Gene Kerrigan
30) Dominion, by C J Sansom
(26) Three years ago this month, I was in Alton, helping out after hours on a Christmas changeover, and browsed through the evocative first chapter of 'The Maze of Cadiz'. I'm pleased to report that the rest of the novel delivers on the promise of those opening pages. This accomplished debut follows an ingenue spy, Peter Cotton (mental casting : Rupert Penry-Jones) on his mission to investigate the death of an 'agent in residence' in Cadiz. Set in September 1944, I've rarely come across a thriller that establishes a time and place so well.
(27) Is the impressive and fascinating sequel to 'Cadiz', and certainly the first thriller I've read with the negotiations for the Bretton Woods agreement taking place in the background. Not all of the plot strands seemed to work out convincingly or conclusively, but the ambiguities and uncertainties reminded me a lot of le Carre, especially 'The Looking Glass War' and 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'.
(28) "It wasn't every week he delivered a fugitive from the Gestapo to the communist underground, went looking for secrets in a dockside bar, and played some lethal form of hunt the parcel with the border police. In fact, it wasn't any week, and he was scared." A slow burn thriller set in Berlin in the early months of 1939, and fascinating to read after being immersed in Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir series (the Hotel Adlon and the 'Alex', the police bureau at Alexanderplatz, are prominent in both.) The hero, John Russell, isn't as laconic or as hard-boiled as Bernie Gunther, and makes for a sympathetic viewpoint character (mental casting : Rufus Sewell).
(29) Gene Kerrigan's 'The Rage' pits Bob Tidey, an ordinary decent Dublin policeman, against Vincent Naylor, a young professional criminal recently released from 'The Joy' and keen to set up a new score. What begins as a nuts-and-bolts cash-in-transit heist thriller, with the attendant (intriguing) jargon - podmen, carriers, maces, overshoots - turns into something else as the heist goes south. This is urgent, compulsive storytelling, a devastating vision of what happens to a society when the institutions that underpin it are financially and morally bankrupt. A worthy winner of the 2012 CWA Gold Dagger.
(30) I'd been looking forward to 'Dominion' as a fan of both C J Sansom's Shardlake mysteries and alternate historical fiction. This didn't quite do it for me - the narrative doesn't spring to life until about a third of the way through, when the hero's wife is swept up in horrible events on Tottenham Court Road. There's a lengthy afterword, in which C J Sansom explains the rationale behind his worldbuilding : he won't be voting for the SNP any time soon. He acknowledges his admiration for Robert Harris' 'Fatherland', but can't construct his narrative as tightly. The outstanding example, for me, of the Nazis-Won scenario is Keith Roberts' concise and brilliant 'Weihnachtsabend', reprinted fairly recently in 'The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories' ; sadly 'Dominion' doesn't come close to it.
27) Washington Shadow, by Aly Monroe
28) Zoo Station, by David Downing
29) The Rage, by Gene Kerrigan
30) Dominion, by C J Sansom
(26) Three years ago this month, I was in Alton, helping out after hours on a Christmas changeover, and browsed through the evocative first chapter of 'The Maze of Cadiz'. I'm pleased to report that the rest of the novel delivers on the promise of those opening pages. This accomplished debut follows an ingenue spy, Peter Cotton (mental casting : Rupert Penry-Jones) on his mission to investigate the death of an 'agent in residence' in Cadiz. Set in September 1944, I've rarely come across a thriller that establishes a time and place so well.
(27) Is the impressive and fascinating sequel to 'Cadiz', and certainly the first thriller I've read with the negotiations for the Bretton Woods agreement taking place in the background. Not all of the plot strands seemed to work out convincingly or conclusively, but the ambiguities and uncertainties reminded me a lot of le Carre, especially 'The Looking Glass War' and 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold'.
(28) "It wasn't every week he delivered a fugitive from the Gestapo to the communist underground, went looking for secrets in a dockside bar, and played some lethal form of hunt the parcel with the border police. In fact, it wasn't any week, and he was scared." A slow burn thriller set in Berlin in the early months of 1939, and fascinating to read after being immersed in Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir series (the Hotel Adlon and the 'Alex', the police bureau at Alexanderplatz, are prominent in both.) The hero, John Russell, isn't as laconic or as hard-boiled as Bernie Gunther, and makes for a sympathetic viewpoint character (mental casting : Rufus Sewell).
(29) Gene Kerrigan's 'The Rage' pits Bob Tidey, an ordinary decent Dublin policeman, against Vincent Naylor, a young professional criminal recently released from 'The Joy' and keen to set up a new score. What begins as a nuts-and-bolts cash-in-transit heist thriller, with the attendant (intriguing) jargon - podmen, carriers, maces, overshoots - turns into something else as the heist goes south. This is urgent, compulsive storytelling, a devastating vision of what happens to a society when the institutions that underpin it are financially and morally bankrupt. A worthy winner of the 2012 CWA Gold Dagger.
(30) I'd been looking forward to 'Dominion' as a fan of both C J Sansom's Shardlake mysteries and alternate historical fiction. This didn't quite do it for me - the narrative doesn't spring to life until about a third of the way through, when the hero's wife is swept up in horrible events on Tottenham Court Road. There's a lengthy afterword, in which C J Sansom explains the rationale behind his worldbuilding : he won't be voting for the SNP any time soon. He acknowledges his admiration for Robert Harris' 'Fatherland', but can't construct his narrative as tightly. The outstanding example, for me, of the Nazis-Won scenario is Keith Roberts' concise and brilliant 'Weihnachtsabend', reprinted fairly recently in 'The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories' ; sadly 'Dominion' doesn't come close to it.
