Bruno now has so many wounds, he must look like he is put together with thread. But that is getting ahead of myself.
Jihadists come to France to find tBruno now has so many wounds, he must look like he is put together with thread. But that is getting ahead of myself.
Jihadists come to France to find the Testament of Iftikhar, a document believed to express that Islam did not consider Jersualem to be important to their faith. It sounds suspicious, given what we know of history, but some people believed such a document existed. And they were willing to torture and kill to prevent it being found.
Bruno is in the midst of the action along with his sidekick for a fortnight, Amélie from Paris, all color, dark skin and gorgeous voice. But Amélie has eyes only for Yacov, the Israeli Parisian lawyer whose mother financed a scout camp in an earlier episode. And so it goes, the mysteries of attraction among the French.
The abiding love some people have for automobiles is on display in this portion of the series. It deserves to be here because clearly France is all abThe abiding love some people have for automobiles is on display in this portion of the series. It deserves to be here because clearly France is all about 'la amour' and that comes in many colors and shapes, whether mechanical or not. I withhold a star in my rating merely because the ending was rushed and incomplete. Many mysteries are incomplete, but not quite to this extent. I always expect the 'thief who got away' to show up in a subsequent story, but so far, they never have.
A beautiful Bugatti, one of only four made in the history of the company, was lost during the war while traveling from a southern French city to a northern one. Many wondered where it had gone, and only at the end do we discover its fate.
In the meantime, Bruno takes a new lover (again!), and I am not going to tell you the outcome, but consider his record with women...
A young boy who is getting into trouble in town is taken in hand and becomes a hero! with untold skills that may one day make him rich in friends and family, if not in cash.
This was ably done and played to our love of gossip, even as we protest we care nothing for the lives of celebrities. In this, Bruno came dangerously This was ably done and played to our love of gossip, even as we protest we care nothing for the lives of celebrities. In this, Bruno came dangerously close to having his lifetime hero unveiled, but fortunately, he was spare that indignity.
A breathtakingly beautiful woman made ALL the men fall in love with her, even the usually resistant Bruno, and we enjoyed his pleasure in a night he would never forget. But then the central mystery of the death of a friend of 'The Patriarch' comes into focus and we let go of any illusions.
I think I may have an objection to Pamela, Bruno's one-time lover, who seems to have "set him free," for an uncertain future. ...more
This was a very successful part of the series, showing us the difference in the way the French deal with terrorist threats as compared to the AmericanThis was a very successful part of the series, showing us the difference in the way the French deal with terrorist threats as compared to the Americans. I really enjoyed the premise: an autistic boy who happened to have a particular skill with mathematics, electronics, etc is recruited to a Taliban cell in Afghanistan, unbeknownst to his parents. When he returns...he is already well known in the West by his nickname, "The Engineer."
An American consular attache who also happens to be an FBI agent, is seconded to St. Denis to debrief the returned boy/man. Yet another romantic entanglement for our busy Bruno... ...more
The Bruno novels are a glimpse into provincial life in France and for that, I am grateful. This particular novel about a resistance fighter, who alwayThe Bruno novels are a glimpse into provincial life in France and for that, I am grateful. This particular novel about a resistance fighter, who always suspected someone had made off with millions of francs from a bombed train, didn't hold together as well as others Walker has created. But it introduced some interesting and perplexing characters...an American academic who I am having a hard time assessing. I prefer, I think, a more clear cut view of their morality or culpability.
We had another foreign resident of St Denis introduced--a man who appeared to have ties to British intelligence who was burgled for his collection of household antiques, but which raised questions about the source of his interest in France......more
I am enjoying the every-day-ness of the Bruno mysteries. The Devil's Cave was particularly gruesome and sad with some unexplained family dynamics, butI am enjoying the every-day-ness of the Bruno mysteries. The Devil's Cave was particularly gruesome and sad with some unexplained family dynamics, but the dynastic range of family names in France was well on display. Some startling revelations make us question what we knew of some familiar characters, in a way that makes us dislike them a little, perhaps.
Lots to think about when it comes to choosing how we want to live, who to love and how puppies make life better. ...more
This was convoluted and I am quite sure I reviewed this already, but anyway, it propelled me to the next in the series. I am a sucker sometimes for caThis was convoluted and I am quite sure I reviewed this already, but anyway, it propelled me to the next in the series. I am a sucker sometimes for calm. And while there are some gruesome deaths detailed in the novels, somehow we can clearly see that Bruno has it all in hand....more
I thought I already reviewed this, but I do not see my review here. I first read this back in May or June of 2024 and have been racing through the resI thought I already reviewed this, but I do not see my review here. I first read this back in May or June of 2024 and have been racing through the rest since then. Food, policing, friends, the market, the daily life of a small French city near Périgord identifies the flavor. International friendships keep it from being too cruel or claustrophobic. Bruno is a humanist....more
Liking this series more and more. Can get involved enough that I do not feel I am wasting time. Love the French language everywhere, forcing me to GooLiking this series more and more. Can get involved enough that I do not feel I am wasting time. Love the French language everywhere, forcing me to Google pronunciations and meanings. This is also a complicated story of past terrorism in Europe...one that almost lost me several times. France's relationship to the Basque freedom movement, and the pan-European communist movements are at the forefront. Brutal, secretive, post-individual movements that have no pity.
Bruno once again puts his township at the center of his concerns and enjoys the company of his animals, lovers, hunting and drinking partners. ...more
Who woulda thought Black Diamond was not about skiing but instead about truffles? This mystery veered into danger territory when the author decided toWho woulda thought Black Diamond was not about skiing but instead about truffles? This mystery veered into danger territory when the author decided to talk about several threads at once, clearly not at ease with the Asian portion.
Market stall owners of Asian descent are set upon by Asians of different nationalities and the immigration/fakes/drugs issues that crop up are all thrown in for flavor. The complicated nature of the relationships threaten to overcome the slow pace of Saint Denis but somehow Bruno manages to come out on top once again.
The similarly complicated relationship between Pamela and Bruno presents choices I wouldn't make the way they do, I don't thin change that might be necessary. Wrenching change is offset by pleasant additions to the character list, like Hector....more
I skipped around a little. This is Book #13 in the series, published in 2020 and it has so much current events featured that it seemed especially timeI skipped around a little. This is Book #13 in the series, published in 2020 and it has so much current events featured that it seemed especially timely. The main action takes place at Chateau Rock which is owned by an aging British rock star. The musician's son is in love with a wealthy Russian who comes to the chateau to visit with her bodyguard and a friend, who happens to have Ukrainian family history.
One of the parts I liked best was Bruno's 1) involvement with Isabel, who works for French and European intelligence, but also 2) Balzac's mating story, his first encounter with the female of his species. Really quite involving, to one who's never been involved in such doings.
Very fast paced starting midway, but the rest is as wonderful and slow as one would hope a French village market would be... ...more
I just inhaled this--it was so good. Not used to reading novels these past few years, at first I found the chapters just slightly too long. But I soonI just inhaled this--it was so good. Not used to reading novels these past few years, at first I found the chapters just slightly too long. But I soon settled in and I just loved the characterizations, the language, the descriptions of heat, the language, the handcrafts of the main characters, the language, the immediate sense of danger one gets from a father returning home and from having a teenager in the house.
I should have kept her first book in the series because I wanted to go back and reread it, to enjoy it once again. I loved that one, too, and we don't absolutely need the first to understand the second, but one wants to enjoy the full span of it, the American settling in to a small Irish town. It is a little painful. French gets everything right in this, I thought...she pulls us this way and that and the end is a total surprise and unexpected, though we knew it wasn't working out the way the headlights were pointed.
What a masterful police procedural this is. Rendell wrote this in the 1980s, shortly after China opened to the West. She beautifully captures the oddiWhat a masterful police procedural this is. Rendell wrote this in the 1980s, shortly after China opened to the West. She beautifully captures the oddities of train travel and life under Communist Party rule, the humid heat of Guangzhou and the strange beauty of the southern mountains in the city of Guilin.
Shortly after the return of famed police Chief Inspector Wexford to England, deaths among those he’d met while traveling in China ties their lives together once again. Rendell was in her fifties and at the height of her powers when she wrote this book and it shows in every sentence. She somehow makes star-crossed love stories believable and the chintz-upholstered, heavily-draped world of the wealthy in England accessible.
Rendell died in 2015 but she remains one of Britain’s mystery greats....more
Jassy Mackenzie has an adrenaline-fueled writing style that makes portions of her novels difficult to put down and this is a perfect example. There isJassy Mackenzie has an adrenaline-fueled writing style that makes portions of her novels difficult to put down and this is a perfect example. There is often a sexy thread, too, that weaves through the piece…will she or won’t she? But while this title and a couple of Mackenzie’s other novels focus on environmental crimes, this novel feints and gives us a national security and industrial crime: nuclear waste that can be used for weapons.
The central mystery telegraphed to me early, so I read mostly to see how Mackenzie drew it out and for the pleasure of reading her on South Africa again. It is really all local action since the national security aspect takes a second seat, serving only to bump the case to a high enough level to involve de Jong’s love interest, David Patel.
But we are thrown a curve ball with several people seeming to be good choices as bad guys…only to have them turn up dead. We are thoroughly confused as to who is handling the local plant sabotage and who is handling the international transport of the really dangerous nuclear byproduct. A much different book could have come from all this, but I was just as happy to stay in South Africa.
Mackenzie introduced us earlier to a tangential character that she fills in with affectionate strokes in this novel, Warrant Officer Mweli. When Mweli is threatened late in the action, I found myself praying she’ll get through it. I’d love to see her developed further in future books, but this may be the end of the road for Mackenzie, as it was published in 2017 and is the last so far in the series. (I hope not.)
Mackenzie does have another series, apparently, not all available in the U.S. In 2020 Mackenzie published an erotic novella called Switch, but there are others: Soaring (2016), Drowning (2016) and Folly (2013). So, she's still working. Good news for us.
By the way, Mackenzie also had an influence on my interest in handguns. I find myself seeking pictures of different makes to get an idea of size, weight and accuracy. Maybe I’ll have tried a few at the range by the time Jade de Jong is back online....more
We go to the eastern coast north of Durban in this novel, to Richards Bay. Jade is meant to meet her lover David Patel there by the golden sands and iWe go to the eastern coast north of Durban in this novel, to Richards Bay. Jade is meant to meet her lover David Patel there by the golden sands and in preparation Jade takes scuba diving lessons. I found myself unnecessarily jealous of this fictional setup.
Shortly, as is usual for Ms. de Jong, people start dying. And not just dying, but being horribly slain and everyone is looking around for a culprit. In this particular novel, far-flung characters are somehow connected, though just how this is so does not become apparent until the very end.
{spoiler alert} (view spoiler)[ The third in the Jade de Jong series is my least favorite of this series. Mackenzie was stretched in this one, and just barely made it all come together at the end. Also, sorry to say, she told us early in the novel that animals and plants were not her forte, similarly to her father. She knew every brand and type of shooting instrument, but the natural world was not her area of expertise.
So Jade’s understanding of the destruction of the natural world in this novel about crimes to the environment might be perceived as ‘thin.’ We forgive her because she is perfectly willing to admit she knows nothing. Her real horror is reserved for the possibility that the golden sands might no longer be available to hard working cops and business owners rather than for the sea creatures including, ahem, reptiles like leatherback turtles. (hide spoiler)]
It is hard to retain any sense of superiority when Mackenzie writes a smackdown like this stunning description:
"Most of the cars had GP number plates and were also heading west, holiday over, back to Gauteng. Grim-faced at the prospect of returning to world, with their tank tops and shorts revealing deep sun tans and post-holiday flab. Arms as bloated and brown as cooked sausages, feet slapping along in flip-flop sandals. Kids trailing behind them, bored, restless and yelling."
Don’t know about you, but I feel like I am there.
I got a bit lost in the description of the central crime, and I kept losing track of who the bad guys were. But heck, I hope Mackenzie had fun researching this one because Richards Bay sounds gorgeous....more
This tour de force by a celebrated veteran of Swedish police dramas in the van Veeteren series drips along so slowly…like an icicle melting in freezinThis tour de force by a celebrated veteran of Swedish police dramas in the van Veeteren series drips along so slowly…like an icicle melting in freezing temps…that one might be forgiven for thinking the police were doing nothing at all to catch the mysterious killer of a young boy.
And really, they weren’t. Another two murders started to put the wind up and made them look back…but look how easy it would have been to overlook all the clues that would have led them to the killer of the boy. If one of the murdered wasn’t former Chief Inspector Van Veeteren’s son, I think we can safely say an opportunistic mass murderer would have gone free.
The involvement of the now-retired Van Veeteren added to the misty hard-to-get a clear angle on the case, and yet everyone in the station was on their best behavior to solve this case “for the chief.” The chief was, at best, ambivalent about the death of his son, who was recovered from a history of addiction. The scourge of drug addiction broke relationships and a life that barely had gotten started.
So, we are aware of the killer’s motives, actions, plans but we have no way to signal the same to the police. We grow increasingly anxious as the killer seems to have one solution to people finding out about his crime: kill them. Bodies keep accumulating and finally, finally, a clue is found that links the victims. It is the terrible tension that keeps us involved…how long can this go on and what on earth will be the thing to unravel the whole?
The writing and translation are stellar. There is one piece I must recount here:
“On Wednesday, December 9, it was 50 or so degrees, and the sky was high and bright. The sun seemed to be surprised, almost embarrassed at having to display itself in all its somewhat faded nudity.”
Hour of the Wolf ends with a scene in New York, and Nesser captures the cold December feel and the vastness that is New York. Chief Inspector Reinhart of Maardam stayed on the 24th floor of Trump Tower (!) with a view to the north and east of Manhattan. He describes how inhospitable it seemed in the chilly fall weather when the sun set early. (This was long before Trump ran for office, so Nesser had his finger on the pulse.)
First published in 1999, this can already be considered an old one, one of the last of the Van Veeteren series which were still being written, translated and published into the 2000s. Håkan Nesser won the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award three times and prestigious the Glass Key Award once. Around 2006, Nesser moved to Greenwich Village in New York for a couple of years where a new series featuring a Swedish police inspector with Italian roots, Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti, was published.
Nesser’s oeuvre is Scandi classic. Read them all....more
The second of Jassy Mackenzie’s Jade de Jong series is a big book: she opens her narrative to several countries and many seemingly unrelated cases. ThThe second of Jassy Mackenzie’s Jade de Jong series is a big book: she opens her narrative to several countries and many seemingly unrelated cases. The focus is trafficking of women across borders and the story is a desperate one for many unfortunate characters.
Mackenzie manages to capture the work style of every one we meet, from the school principal to the small time bureaucrat and seller of false documents. Even the nicely-dressed and -spoken man who delivers ultimatums about getting fake documents on time is believable, partly because he backs up his threats with action.
There is a particularly memorable scene that shares the experience of minibus taxi-riding in South Africa:
"The taxi driver was busy peeling a banana with his knee propped against the wheel. While he ate the fruit, he conducted an animated conversation with the man in the passenger seat. Lots of unbroken eye contact, reminding Jade of the way David liked to drive.
When he had finished, the taxi driver flung the banana skin out of the window and, still steering with his knee, began to peel an orange.
The vehicle felt wallowy on the road, its uneven progress a testimony to ancient shocks, balding tires, brakes worn down to the rim."
This novel exhibits horrific violence against those who are thought to threaten the system but again, as in previous Mackenzie novels, the pace is blistering. We can’t stop reading even if we want to. This novel particularly had great impetus that led us to a shocking conclusion.
This novel raised my opinion of Mackenzie’s skills even higher and I am thoroughly hooked now and must finish the series. I have already checked to see if there are any more novels in her oeuvre and I am surprised and disheartened to see she may have gone back to her day job. Her character development and braided story lines are far more accomplished than most and I certainly hope she is well compensated for giving up novel writing, if indeed she has.
What she really needs is a film contract for a limited TV series. Her characters and themes rock out loud and are way suitable for a diverse audience....more
Charlotte Carter. We are lucky to be alive in this time when publishers are doing the right thing for themselves AND for us by republishing terrific, Charlotte Carter. We are lucky to be alive in this time when publishers are doing the right thing for themselves AND for us by republishing terrific, under-read authors. Charlotte Carter is new to me but she is one of the best writers for a kind of hard-boiled mystery reminiscent of Raymond Chandler and the kind of glamour and won’t-look-away savvy of Nina Simone and James Baldwin.
Nanette Hayes is the series. Described as “a Grace Jones lookalike in terms of coloring and body type (she has the better waist, I win for tits)”, Nan is, when we meet her, busking on NYC streets with a saxophone, supplementing part-time work as a translator, French to English.
As far as I can tell, the series is only three novels long, but Carter has such a delicious and particular voice, you’re going to want to read all of this in a rush of indulgence. The first book in the series, Rhode Island Red, comes out July 27, just in time for long hot days in the hammock. August and September bring the last two, Coq Au Vin and Drumsticks. It’s like eating bonbons—very hard to resist.
First published in 1997, Rhode Island Red is written from a Black woman’s perspective and set in New York City just after stop-and-frisk was added to our lexicon. Cops were hated then, maybe even more than now? Even the title is a mystery; we don’t even know what the title means until close to the end but if you were to guess…
Nanette longs for France but grew up in the States as a child prodigy in maths, languages and spelling, of all things. One day another sax street player—a White man a little older than she—shows up needing a place to stay…and who ends up dead within hours.
It’s a complicated story, as it always must be when a stranger gets killed inside one’s own apartment. Nan calls the cops, only to have them question her motivation in bringing him home to her apartment. It’s a good question, one that Nanette will spend the rest of the story asking herself.
Carter wasn’t ahead of her time. She was playing old tunes in the 90s, but they were the anthem of the century. In a sense, she was closing the joint. We as a country are just catching up with her now. Radical. Real. Rhode Island Red....more
The e-edition of Hamilton’s latest in the Ava Lee series is out and you will want to take this trip with Ava as she hits several continents: AmsterdamThe e-edition of Hamilton’s latest in the Ava Lee series is out and you will want to take this trip with Ava as she hits several continents: Amsterdam and Antwerp in Europe, Singapore and mainland China in Asia, and back to Toronto in North America.
Ava’s collecting debts but for a friend, as she had in her early career. It brings back memories. This time it is not debts Ava is following but cold, hard investment theft wrapped up in a not-so-generous evangelical megachurch on the outskirts of Toronto. Hamilton creates the cruelest, most unambiguously unforgivable villains to walk the earth, and places them in a world we recognize. From there, the scandal just gets bigger…
Has anyone read the 14th-century Chinese novel called, variously, The Water Margin, Outlaws of the Marsh, and All Men Are Brothers? It is a rip-roaring 4-volume Song Dynasty yarn, a masterpiece of storytelling, packed with colorful characters whose names tell it all: Little Whirlwind, Blue-Faced Beast, Impatient Vanguard, etc. The epic story tells of 108 bandits who live by the margin of Liang Shan Marsh and pursue justice by unconventional means.
Hamilton’s story this time has elements of this ancient tale. He named his thieving church leaders Cunningham, Rogers, and Randy. Ava’s triad connection in Chengdu, Han, is blustery and loud, his crass manner and crude-but-effective methods modeled on characters in the ancient tale. Han uses his fists when words are not enough. He carries a large weapon to focus the attention of his opponents on their limited options.
I adored this tale for these elements, and for outlining and pointing to the real and acutely painful problem that Ava uncovers in the course of her investigations, something that has been plaguing the West, particularly the United States and Canada, for some years now. The problem has its source in China and concerned North Americans have wondered how on earth this is happening without and/or despite Chinese government oversight.
The answer to that question echoes what we hear when contemplating the indescribably painful political atmosphere in the United States: it is completely within the realm of the country’s leadership to stop the trouble. For some reason beyond our understanding, the leadership prefers chaos. God help us all.
Another fantastic addition to Hamilton’s box of jewels.
P.S. If you are going to pick up Outlaws of the Marsh, please choose Sidney Shapiro’s translation, the language of which made me fall in deeply love with Chinese culture, habits and humor. Shapiro’s word choices make the ancient book immediately relevant, laugh-out-loud funny, and the long read tireless.
A tense and absorbing political thriller is not what I was expecting for this second book of a trilogy about the head of a Hong Kong triad establishinA tense and absorbing political thriller is not what I was expecting for this second book of a trilogy about the head of a Hong Kong triad establishing businesses in southern China. Ian Hamilton, creator of the Ava Lee series, does some of this best work here, recreating exactly how it is possible for corruption to take place in China’s Special Economic Zones.
If this story has any truth to it, real life in triads is long periods of calm: Uncle Chow Tung is young for a triad leader, in his forties, but for all the criminality of gang-life, his daily existence is remarkably staid. His only vice is playing the horses at Hong Kong’s Happy Valley Racecourse. Lesser leaders get up to more deviltry in their free time, perhaps, but the fact that Uncle provides a stable, low-drama income from betting shops, restaurants and massage parlors is what his triad and others in the area appreciate about him.
We get a course in foresight, the savvy business planning Chow engages in to supplement the triad’s falling income as a result of economic changes in Hong Kong. It’s the 1980s. Chow reads in the paper that Deng Xiao Ping is trying something new: socialism at the top of society and a loosened market-based environment at the individual level.
The circumstances in Shenzhen and the other special economic zones were unlike anywhere else on earth at that time and the Chinese government was making it up as they went along. If things started booming a little too wildly, they would clamp down with a blinding ferocity. Hamilton walks us through a mini-purge and it is terrifying. The individual is insignificant and rule of law is virtually unknown.
Despite the fact that there were only two women in this entire book, one being a restaurant owner selling congee and one showing up for one or two sentences in the last quarter of the story, I was surprised to find I did not really feel the lack. To me, learning the relative ease with which Uncle began his empire in China as well as concise details about the bribes he had to pay and the conditions of his continued investments was utterly absorbing. I was as stressed as Uncle through the twists and turns of his fortunes.
At the very end of the book, I was left pondering the dubious legality of all the foreign investment enterprises in those special zones and the odd criminality that comes out of political infighting in China. In politics as in business, there is hardly a safe place of truth and virtue. Is that something we just have to acknowledge and get on with the business of skimming, lying and personal advantage and to hell with everyone else? What a chump I am. I can’t make it in the real world, I’m afraid.
I love the work Hamilton did here. The tension is ratcheted up high in parts, and for Chow Tung and us both, it is pure torture. I can’t wait to read the next installment which should bring us our first glimpse of Ava Lee. This is terrific, addictive storytelling....more
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