Ross Thomas is known for his wry sense of humor and clever skewering of domestic and international US politics. He may have outdid himself with this one. A throwback to the very end of World War II in which everyone is trying to establish themselves following the bloody mess the Axis powers made, Thomas creates a caper in which the world’s major powers and some up-and-coming nation’s are looking for an elusive assassin with a penchant for killing Nazis. Perhaps most famously done in Inglourious Basterds […]
Women of her class are molded to be ornaments
At this point, I think enough Cannonballers have written rave reviews about Sherry Thomas’ “Lady Sherlock Series”. Just read these books if the subject matter appeals to you at all. They are a treasure and I think that each one is better than the last. “The Hollow of Fear” is the third book in the series. I have to admit, again, that my Sherlock Holmes background is via Madonna’s ex husband and Benedict Cumberbatch. I, therefore, come at these books without a reference point for […]
An Entertaining Mess
To conclude his first LA Quartet, James Ellroy goes back to his roots a little: the entirety of this book is told in the first person as opposed to the shifting points-of-view we usually get from his other stuff. The result is as my headline says: an entertaining mess. When reading the first few chapters, I was relieved to only have to follow one character’s motives instead of three or four. But as with the rest of his books, the plotting here is dense and […]
Somehow this series still works.
This one started out really strong for me, and then petered out near the end, for a couple of reasons, which I will be marking in spoiler tags. Mary and Holmes continue to be a great pair, and I find their cerebral marriage a compelling one, though I am beginning to get a bit annoyed with King for discounting Watson so much. Here, we meet an old friend from the first book, the archaeologist Dorothy Ruskin, who shows up in Sussex for a visit, and […]