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Martin Misunderstood by Karin Slaughter

18 February, 2010 by Wulf Forrester-Barker
bookBook Review0.3

Rating: 1 / 5

This book is refreshingly short; at least you only waste about 150 pages of reading time compared to the longer works Slaughter normally delivers. I found the writing style very simple and wondered for a while if it was a new departure for the author, venturing into fiction for the teenage market. However, some explicitly detailed scenes of sex and violence left me doubting that conclusion.

Perhaps it was a project to write a story without any attractive characters or a proper ending. If so, it succeeded in those goals but fails to rise to any loftier ambitions.

[hReview]

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A Warriors Life: A Biography of Paulo Coelho by Fernando Morais

21 January, 2010 by Wulf Forrester-Barker
bookBook Review0.3

Rating: 2 / 5

”... whom I am not at all sure I would like, at least not to spend a whole book with him“ (Mortimer J, Rumpole of the Bailey, in The First Rumple Omnibus, Penguin, 1983, p10)

Thus writes Mortimer's Rumpole, musing on revisiting his younger self in the autobiographical sketches he sets out to write. Having spent a book with Paulo Coelho, I am quite positive that I would not strive to spend another with him and I am not even sure that I would care to spend another in the company of his characters either. Their wisdom stems from the creator and Fernando Morais' account of his life, which purports to carry the Coelho stamp of approval, paints a vainglorious hero from whose path I wanted to divert at every turn.

I am patently not an adherent of "The Warrior", although I have previously read The Alchemist, which I did not find too bad. So much for the subject but what of the telling?

Morais chooses the motif of opening with a scene from the present before returning to his subject's birth and progressing forward through life to near the starting point. The author seems to be a fan of Coelho, repeatedly pointing out the stubborn foolishness of the Brazilian critics at belittling him despite ever-increasing sales success and relating without scepticism his stories of supernatural occurences.

Of course, it was also Morais who chose to begin the work recounting how Coelho seems possessed of an irrational anger when he thinks he is ignored but switches to preening when receiving the adulation of the crowds and how he receives comfort not just from his compulsion to perform various mystic gestures but also in tracking the ever increasing sales of his books around the world.

He fails though in either making his subject appear interesting to me or in writing so richly that I was distracted from my dissatisfaction. Some of that may be lost in translation from Portuguese (the book was first published in Brazil although I cannot find a translation credit) but I still only feel inclined to cast it at 2/5 even though I am sure that many would love it and mark me short of Coelho's alleged gnosis.

[hReview]

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This is my first review of an ebook, received in PDF format as part of the LibraryThing early reviewers scheme.

Dead Pan by Gayle Trent

22 December, 2009 by Wulf Forrester-Barker
bookBook Review0.3

Rating: 2 / 5

Dead Pan is the second in a series of mystery novels that attempt to put baking and murder in the oven and produce something delectable. For those who like their reading to be quite light, airy and with plenty of sweetness, this might prove to be irresistible but I have to confess that it was not to my taste.

The only thing I found particularly notable about the writing was the tendency to use plenty of contemporary references. This is the first book I have read where the heroine (and one of her friends) spend time playing rock guitar video games! I did not find any particular richness in the descriptions, resonance in the characters or language that was startlingly brilliant, amusing or both though. Perhaps I was just struggling with the concept of a cake decorator, Daphne Martin, who seems to find herself at the centre of yet another twisted skein of deceit and death? That said, I recognise that the idea of medical examiners and forensic anthropologists playing front line detective is also rather far-fetched so I had better be wary of attempting to dismiss Dead Pan on grounds of realism, since I have been drawn to novels with those other unlikely settings.

It reminded me of the gentle investigations pursued by two older ladies in Simon Brett's novels, with a touch of the whimsy that pervades the work of Jasper Fforde. If you like that style of mystery, then Dead Pan is probably one to put the kettle on for. My palate simply prefers things a little more savoury.

[hReview]

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Here is a book review I posted on LibraryThing last month:

Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson

20 August, 2009 by Wulf Forrester-Barker
bookBook Review0.3

Rating: 3 / 5

It was not until I did some follow-up research that I realised Fifty Degrees Below was the central book of a trilogy. In that case, it did very well for having a beginning that was engaging to pick up and and middle that largely sustained my interest but it felt very lacking in the end department!

The protagonist, Frank Vanderwal manages an intriguing balance of holding down a responsible job in an organisation devoted to finding effective measures to combat climate change while experimenting with splitting his private life between his van, a tree house and the bathroom of a gym rather than the more traditional house style of living.

Initially this, combined with the backdrop of a Washington DC that had been devastated by floods and was now facing an extreme winter, was fascinating. Somewhere in the later portion of the book though, perhaps round about the time Frank got hit in the face and suffered concussion, it began to feel that it was dragging along.

Perhaps reading the first and last books as well would give a better appreciation of the whole but I would rather have had things wrapped up a 100 or so pages earlier rather than be faced with another thousand pages to read before I can appreciate the whole.

[hReview]

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One of my favourite fictional detectives is Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander. I only discovered him a couple of years ago but have read quite a few of the Wallander novels since then.

Last year the BBC released a series of televised adaptations featuring Kenneth Branagh in the lead role. I only saw one or two of these (via the iPlayer site) but was very impressed with how they had captured the story. Last night Jane and I watched another episode but it turned out that this was the Swedish version.

We weren't disappointed though - the acting and direction were just as good and, as a bonus, we got the extra flavour of hearing it in Swedish (while having good subtitles to follow along). Mycket bra (I think)!

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Here is the review I promised of Suffer the Children by Adam Creed. I received it via the LibraryThing early reviewers scheme although given the fact this was a few weeks ago, perhaps "running slightly behind reviewers" would be a better group for me!

Suffer the Children by Adam Creed

29 May, 2009 by Wulf Forrester-Barker
bookBook Review0.3

Rating: 3 / 5

This is a novel in crime genre, featuring a police detective as its hero. Looking at the fiction I read, I am clearly part of the target audience and so I started the book with great anticipation.

The hero, DI Will "Staffe" Wagstaffe is a well-regarded investigator but with a maverick streak, a painful history that he keeps hidden from most people and problems maintaining long-term romantic relationships. That sounds suspiciously like several favourite clichés but at least Staffe doesn't have a serious drinking problem and is, generally speaking, honest and engaging.

The story, too, seems engaging and begins with some decent writing, introducing characters, settings and potential plotlines. Before long, a convicted paedophile is found brutally murdered and our hero takes on the case. At this point, I was hopeful of a good story, perhaps pondering the theme of vigilante action along the way. However, although the crime (and others that follow from it) is largely solved, Creed seems content to push over-familiar buttons and the result feels like warmed-over scraps. It is content to deliver cheap thrills rather than thought-provoking material but the recycled plot twists fail to deliver while a cold wind whistles through several large holes left by abandoned sub-stories.

I would class the work as belonging to the same class as authors such as Mo Hayder and Karin Slaughter. Plenty of people love them and there are some glimmers that would persuade me to read at least one more novel from the series if nothing else was too pressing but Creed has not yet achieved the qualities I enjoy so much in the writings of authors such as Ruth Rendell, Peter Robinson and Henning Mankell (to name a few of those I consider at the top of the game).

[hReview]

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I have been doing a lot of reading recently. I've enjoyed making a start on a Swedish detective series from the 1970s (The Laughing Policeman), discovering the Russian adventures of Erast Fandorin in Special Assignments and taking a journey from the future back into history with Orson Scott Card (Pastwatch).

I have also had some non-fiction on the go, covering diverse topics from theology (Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith) to video production (100 Great Home Movie Techniques, which elicited a 5-star review from me on LibraryThing). I might even get round to writing some reviews for my blog before long (certainly including one for Suffer the Children, which I got via the LibraryThing early reviewer scheme).

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