Detective & crime Archives - Page 2 of 2

Killing for England — Iain McDowall

Published on February 20, 2011

Cover of Killing for England

Killing for England
Iain McDowall
305 pages
published in 2005

I picked up this book because I thought it was by a writer I sort of knew, then kept looking when it became clear McDowall wasn’t the writer I was thinking of, because the back cover blurbs compared him favourably to Ian Rankin. That intrigued me enough to read the first few pages and those few pages in turn hooked me and got me to take the book out of the library. For once, the blurb writers had done their work well, though the comparison to Rankin turned out to be only superficial.

Like Rankin, McDowall has a gritty, older detective as his hero, Chief Inspector Jacobson, somebody, again like Rankin’s Rebus, who does not sit well with his police force’s hierarchy. Like Rankin, McDowall has a good eye for the politics of policing as well. Where they differ is in the setting: Rebus polices gritty, urban Edinburgh, while Jacobson patrols fictional, small town English Crowby. Jacobson is also less cynical, less worldweary than Rebus, more idealistic perhaps. McDowall, on the strength of Killing for England at least, is no Rankin clone, but won’t be a disappointment for those looking for a similar sort of writer.

Black as He’s Painted — Ngaio Marsh

Published on January 24, 2009

Cover of Black as He's Painted

Black as He’s Painted
Ngaio Marsh
221 pages
published in 1974

If my girlfriend hadn’t insisted on me reading a passage of this, I would’ve never have read Black as He’s Painted, or any other Ngaio Marsh novel for that matter. My mum, a big fan of the British cozy detective genre, used to read a lot of Ngaio Marsh, but while I did dip into her Agatha Christie collection I never felt the urge to sample the Ngaios. Until I read the passage in question that is. You see, as so many other bookworms, I’m a sucker for cats and fictional threatments of cats; there’s after all nothing as cozy as curling up on the couch with a cat and a book. And Ngaoi Marsh managed to sketch such a convincing and sweet portrait of a cat in the paragraph I was “forced” to read that I immediately wanted to read more.

What had grabbed my attention was the opening of the story. Somewhat unhappily retired ex-Foreign Office civil servant Samuel Whipplestone is going out for a morning constitutional, when he encounters a little cat almost run over by a car. “In a flash it gave a great spring and was on Mr Whipplestone’s chest, clinging with its small paws and –incredibly– purring. He had been told a dying cat willsometimes purr. It had blue eyes. The tip of its tail for about two inches was snow white but the rest of its person was perfectly black. He had no particular antipathy against cats.” That’s so charmingly written and nicely observed I couldn’t help but read the rest of the book when I was home with the flu and in need of something light to read.

Whose Body? — Dorothy L. Sayers

Published on July 20, 2008

Cover of Whose Body?

Whose Body?
Dorothy L. Sayers
191 pages
published in 1923

Back in 2001 when I started this booklog I’d just discovered Dorothy L. Sayers and her Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels, which explains the high porportion of them amongst the crime fiction I read in 2002/02. At the time I read whatever one I could get my hands on, without regards to publication order, which led to some unfortunate accidents, like reading Have his Carcass before Strong Poison. Once I’d finished the series I was a bit sated, which explains why I hadn’t read another Lord Peter novel in over four years. But when I was looking for a light, short detective novel to read in bed one dreary weekend, my eye fell on Whose Body? and I thought it high time to reread it.

Whose Body? is the first Lord Peter Wimsey novel, originally published in 1923. We first meet Lord Peter in the back of a cab, on his way to a rare books action, when he realises he left his catalogue at home. One damn and a annoyed taxi driver later, he’s back just in time to hear his man Bunter answer the phone. Luckily he come home when he did, because it’s his mother, the Dowager Duchess, who asks him to help with a spot of bother for one her acquaintances, Tipps, who just found a body in his bathtub – a stark naked body, apart from a pair of eyeglasses.

Players – Paul J. McAuley

Published on November 25, 2007

Cover of Players

Players
Paul J. McAuley
390 pages
published in 2007

Paul J. McAuley used to be one of my favourite science fiction writers. Used to be, because unfortunately he seems to have chucked it in favour of writing crime and thriller novels. Probably for some silly reason as that they sell better. Not that I mind writers trying out other genres, but whereas I devoured McAuley’s science fiction novels, I couldn’t finish Mind’s Eye, the first of his thrillers I try, stopping halfway through and returned it to the library after it had been lying on my shelves accusively for a few weeks. It’s therefore with some trepidation that I approached Players, but I wanted to give him another chance. And it worked, in as far as that I finished this one.

What’s interesting is that Players shares its opening gimmick, a crime in an online game having repercussions in the real world, with Charlie Stross’ very different Halting State, which was also published this year. But whereas Charlie’s novel is set some years in the future and is quite clearly science fiction, Players is set in the here and now and quite clearly is not.