My Review (4 stars out of 5) Amid lots of twists and turns this book reads like a mix of horror, fantasy and paranormal, with the narrative going off in different directions every five minutes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – but for me it made the plot a little hard to follow…
Category: dialogue
‘The Chinese Keyhole’ by Richard Himmel
My Review (4 stars out of 5) Following the murder of his pal, Tom, lawyer Johnny Maguire decides to check out a Chinatown strip joint. With not much to go on, he ingratiates himself with one of the club’s ‘stars’ in the hope she might let slip information about the place being used as a…
‘Double Indemnity’ by James M Cain
***** Insurance agent Walter Huff gets into deep water when he meets beautiful temptress Phyllis Nirdlinger. Cooking up a plot to kill the woman’s husband, Huff looks forward to getting the money and the girl. Unfortunately, the plan to pull off the perfect murder falls foul of Huff’s boss, Barton Keyes, who knows more about…
‘The Big Nowhere’ by James Ellroy
The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy ***** Los Angeles, 1950. Communist witch hunts and a spate of violent killings throw three men into a complex and dangerous web of lies, deceit and murder. (Audiobook/paperback) This is Ellroy’s second novel in the LA Quartet series. Though there are a few nods to the first book, The…
‘Back Side of a Blue Moon’ by Caleb Pirtle
***** In the East Texas town of Ashland, the Great Depression means times are hard. With money and jobs scarce, anyone with any sense is leaving town. For red-head Eudora Durant, something needs to change and when her violent and whoring husband disappears, townsfolk soon begin making assumptions. But then a stranger comes to town…
Mr Picky Reader (Critical, Fussy or Just Plain Choosy?)
Alright, alright, I admit it – I’m a picky reader. To be clear, I’m not talking about the term ‘picky reader’ as applied to kids who can be hard to please bookwise or those who really don’t want to open a book in the first place. No. What I mean is the change I’ve noticed…
‘Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead’ by Owen Mullen
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead When whistle-blower Gavin Law goes missing, Glasgow PI Charlie Cameron sets out to track him down. But Charlie soon discovers there’s a lot more to the mystery than he first thought. Could a surgeon who left a woman brain-damaged have killed Law to keep him quiet? Or has the…
‘The Little Sister’ by Raymond Chandler
The Little Sister Orfamay Quest lands in the office of PI Philip Marlowe with twenty dollars and a request that he finds her brother. Marlowe takes the case, but when first one then a second corpse turns up, things get complicated and the private eye’s search leads him into a circle of gangsters, Hollywood actors…
‘Violent by Design’ by Paul Heatley
Violent by Design Following a raid on a drug house, northern gangster Neil Doyle’s right-hand man Jimmy Finlay decides it’s better to sort things out himself rather than break the bad news to his boss. But the man he seeks isn’t going to roll over and lay down without a fight and Jimmy is pulled…
‘Biggles and the Black Peril’ by Captain WE Johns
Biggles and the Black Peril After a clammy white mist makes visibility impossible, flying ace James Bigglesworth and his pal Algy are forced to land their Vandal amphibian somewhere in Norfolk. The apparently desolate landscape prompts the pair to do a spot of exploring with a view to finding somewhere to eat. However, on discovering…
