criminolly's reviews
2419 reviews

The Murder of Twelve by Jessica Fletcher, Jon Land

3.0

This is basically ‘Murder, She Wrote’ does ‘And Then There Were None’, with a high body count to match, and is as much fun as that sounds. It sees writer turned sleuth Jessica Fletcher stuck in a local hotel during a blizzard, the other guests being a wedding party who are gradually getting bumped off. 
It’s silly but pacy and entertaining, even if the peril is never ramped up quite as much as it could have been and the mystery is less than perfect. 

Hank & Muddy by Stephen Mertz

adventurous funny mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

4.0

A fun, fast-paced novel that teams up the Hillbilly Shakespeare Hank Williams with Blues genius Muddy Waters for an unlikely but enjoyable crime thriller. Author Stephen Mertz has spent decades writing men's adventure books and he brings that same pulpy energy to this novel, whilst also inserting a little of each man's biography and bringing them to life as characters. 
They're pitched against a formidable band of opponents - corrupt sheriffs, g-men and the KKK - and the plot moves with the velocity you'd expect. The 50s US south setting is well done and there's a real colour and vibrancy to the backdrop. Throw in a whole bunch of twists and turns and a little emotion and you have a very entertaining read.  

Victims by Jack Pearl

tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

It’s Christmas Eve in New York in the early 70s and a group of black militants is planting bombs to further their cause. When one of the bombs is lost an officer from the bomb squad and leader of the militant group go on a race against time to find it. This could have been amazing, but it fumbles the ball a couple of times and ends up simply being a very enjoyable curio. The Christmas setting is well done, the politics is reasonably even-handed (be prepared to encounter every racial slur you can think to though) and there’s even a redemption sub-plot for a minor character. I never say this, but it admit felt like it should have been longer. The final act is very rushed and could have had even more tension wring out of it. 
I love trash books like this that capture the mood of a moment, and ‘Victims’ certainly does that, for better or worse. 

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

3.0

How to describe ’The Thorn Birds’? It’s hugely long (around 700 pages) has an uncomfortable premise (the relationship between a Catholic priest and a woman - they first meet when she is 10 and he is 26) and it was massively successful. The book is the most successful Australian book ever and the TV mini series was the second most successful of all time when it first aired. Oh, and it’s fine. The premise is less horrific than it might have been, the length is just about justified by the multi-decade, generational family saga style of the story and it’s readable enough. The book came out at the time that the rest of the world was remembering Australia existed, and the setting helps - there’s an authenticity to it all that makes even the minutiae quite interesting. There are some decent set pieces too, including a storm sequence which is wonderfully dramatic. 
The characters are okay, not exactly fascinating, but interesting enough that I did enjoy following their lives. The lack of a real plot is probably the book’s biggest weakness. It’s one of those blockbusters that’s more a series of things happening than an actual story. Sometimes that works but I’m not sure it did here. 
In summary, it was 700 pages and I finished it, so I guess it was okay? 

Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks by Patricia Highsmith, Patricia Highsmith

5.0

Reading this book was as a fascinating, moving experience. I don’t read many memoirs, and when I do they’re the considered, filtered kind. Reading something as raw as this was breathtaking - Highsmith’s most private thoughts laid bare. It feels intrusive at times, but it’s also utterly compelling, even when she’s describing the most mundane things. 
She’s an author I’ve come to greatly admire over the last 2 years, so having access to her diaries and notebooks felt like a rare treat, an opportunity to better understand a truly great writer. 

The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories by Eric LaRocca

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

This collection of eight short stories from Eric LaRocca perfectly captures the weird vibe that makes their work so compelling. It's hard to say exactly what it is about LaRocca's work that keeps drawing me back to it, maybe it's the singleminded vision it possesses. There is something about all the stories here, and everything else by them I've read, that feels unlike anything else out there. A weirdness, a darkness, an unsettling insight into the human psyche. 
I think my favourite story was the most conventional one, 'You're Not Supposed To Be Here' which has a pulpy crime feel to it, alongside LaRocca's trademark darkness. There's also a great introduction from Chuck Wendig.  

Gravedigger by Joseph Hansen

adventurous hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

'Gravedigger' is a solid PI novel from the 80s with the twist that the detective is openly (and happily) gay. It's the 6th book in the Dave Brandstetter series (there are 12 in total, the first published in 1970, the last in 1991) and I suspect when they first came out that twist was a much bigger deal than it is today. Despite that advances we've made since then, it's still refreshing to see a LGBTQIA+ lead character in a crime novel whose sexuality is almost incidental to the rest of the book.
The mystery itself is engaging and entertaining, with Dave investigating an insurance claim from a father who believes his daughter was murdered by a cult leader. It has a great early 80s California vibe, just the right number of twists and turns, and comes in at a perfect mystery novel length of just under 200 pages.

The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud

adventurous emotional funny lighthearted tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

'The Strange' is a wonderful, page turning sci fi adventure, that blends western tropes, horror and a coming of age narrative into a very satisfying whole. It's set in Mars in the 1930s, humans are mining the planet. Teenage heroine and narrator Annabelle helps her father run the town diner and gets pulled into a quest across the planet when robbers attack their business.
Annabelle is pure Mattie Ross (the heroine of Charles Portis' excellent western 'True Grit'), but no worse for that. She's smart, determined, funny and a joy to read. The events of the book and the background to the occupation of Mars are ridiculous in just the right way. It's pure pulpy entertainment, with monsters, robots and peril. 
A very enjoyable read from an author I'll definitely be revisiting.  

Captains Outrageous by Joe R. Lansdale

dark funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Joe R Lansdale's 6th book in the 'Hap and Leonard' series doesn't quite measure up to the best of them, but it's still a fun ride. In this adventure, Hap saves the daughter of a millionaire from a brutal attack, gets a big payout as a result and takes his buddy Leonard on a Mexican cruise. Needless to say, things go badly wrong. 
The appeal of these books is the banter between the two leads and trying to figure out how they'll get out of the scrapes they get into. This one delivers on those fronts, but the plot felt a little bit too convoluted to me.

May the Wolf Die by Elizabeth Heider

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

'May the Wolf Die' is an extremely accomplished debut thriller, which combines a great setting, a kickass heroine and a breakneck pace.   
Set in Naples, it follows Nikki Serafino, who acts as a liaison between the Neopolitan police and the US Navy. It's a neat setup, which allows the plot to cover both local crime/law enforcement and more geopolitical tensions. 
Nikki is an engaging central character, easy to root for an as physical and driven as a good detective should be. The book has a great sense of place too, rich descriptions mean the city and its communities really pop on the page, but they ever get in the way of the story.
It's the plot and pacing that are the real star though, There is a relentlessness to events that make the book almost unberably tense and gripping. I don't think a chapter goes by without something dramatic or momentous happening. There is just so much going on in the book, the main investigation, secondary ones and multiple sub-plots involving the cental characters and their families. There's enough content here for a 600 page book, so the fact it clocks in at a relatively svelte 350 pages is impressive. What's also laudable is that it never feels overwhelming. Despite the multiple characters and narratives, I never felt like I didn't have a clear grasp of what was going on. 
This might be the crime debut of the year, I can't wait to see what Heider does next.