This debut novel by author Cara Black centers around her heroine Aimee Leduc, a French female private eye who gets mixed up with violent neo-Nazi skinheads, Jewish survivors of the holocaust, and a secret Nazi organization which is staging a comeback and whose tentacles reach into the highest offices in Europe. The author’s scope is ambitious, her history fascinating, her writing is evocative, and I give her extra kudos for creating a female PI when the genre is so male-centric. But her novel’s biggest weakness, […]
Tough Guys, Tough Talk, and Treasure
I’m a fan of film noir. For my money, it doesn’t get much better than Fred MacMurray “Hey, Baby”-ing Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity or Humphrey Bogart talking tough in The Maltese Falcon. But even though I’m a fan of the detective film and I love to read, I had yet to pick up anything by Dashiell Hammett, the master of the hard-boiled detective novel. Time to remedy that, I decided. The Maltese Falcon is the story of archetypal detective Sam Spade who, along with […]
2 for 1: Harry Potter and the Cuckoo’s Calling and Harry Potter and the Silkworm
The Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm are the first two entries in a new detective series featuring Cormoran Strike and written by much-beloved J.K. Rowling (her pseudonym should hopefully not be a spoiler, as it has been well-publicized and Rowling has been interviewed as Galbraith by now). Strike is a veteran and an amputee, struggling to turn a profit as a private detective in The Cuckoo’s Calling when he is approached to investigate the death of a famous model Lula Landry. Strike is accompanied by […]
The City & The City
Quick Synopsis: A murder occurs in a fractured town, resulting in more questions than answers Quick Review: A very interesting blend of science fiction and detective procedural Read the full review here