Tag: Crime

Book review

Book Review: Line of Sight by David Whish-Wilson

I’ve been looking at a few writing competitions of late. As a new author I like the idea of submitting a short story or novelette to test myself, set my standards at a high enough level and create that snooty air that literary people are known for. One of the things I’ve been doing is grabbing as many past winners’ stories as possible to figure out which story I should enter.

What has struck me about these past winners is that: most winners are graduates or academics in literature; most winners don’t write stories with any narrative structure. This last point frustrates me as a reader: what is the point of the story; why am I reading this; where is this all going; is that character’s cat important or an allegory or just there for page padding? But this is a very popular style for award winners and academics.

David Whish-Wilson was my lecturer recently at the Perth Writers Festival Crime Writing workshop. He is a creative writing lecturer at Curtin University. David does not suffer from this disease of literature. His book is not only entertaining and engrossing but it has a narrative structure.

Now this really shouldn’t be that surprising. Given David’s proclivity for crime writing and his day job you really expect a well written novel. But it is more than just well written, it really conveys the time and place it is set in, it also has characters that I recognise. It really is a crime novel that you can sink your teeth into.

David in traditional cool writers’ pose

This novel is partly a crime fiction novel set against police corruption in Perth Western Australia during the 1970’s and part true crime. Basically any Perth native will not only recognise the locations, but will remember the events and investigations alluded to. I was still nothing but a mistaken case of food poisoning when the true crime aspects that this novel was based upon took place, but when I mentioned the book to mum she immediately recognised it all. It really is hard to discern where to draw the line between reality and fiction in this book. Put another way, if David had written this book 25-30 years ago he would have disappeared in the local forest mentioned in his book, despite his protestations that this is fiction “based on actual events”. Normally “based on actual events” means that there is nothing in the book/movie/TV show that even resembles the “actual events”.

Even a non-Perth native will still find a lot to enjoy in this book. It is a completely engrossing crime thriller and captures the setting and characters of the era to create a thoroughly entertaining read. This book not only surprised me but completely engrossed me. I really enjoyed this book. 4.5 stars.

Book review, Reading

Book review: Watch the World Burn – Leah Giarratano

You always know that a signed copy of a book is going to be good. I’d only read the first two chapters of this book when Leah signed my copy. Of course it helps when you already like the author, why else would you have a copy to sign?

Tall, pretty and one of the nicest people I’ve met.

It is of course more than the characters; the book is tightly crafted whilst also being well paced. It didn’t have those pointless scenes describing how they got to a crime scene, or the endless descriptions of police procedure that is normally rife in crime novels. Most of all it was entertaining, despite the horrible things that everyone of the main characters had been through.But what about Leah’s latest book, Watch the World Burn? Well when I had Leah sign my copy she was running a writing class on writing nasty bad guys at the Perth Writers Festival. I think one of the strengths of this book was that every character seemed to have a depth that a lot of crime authors don’t manage to imbue. Sure, that sales rep is about to die at the hands of a serial terrorist, but I actually get the sense that the sales rep is more than just another notch in the body count.

I’m a fan and can’t wait for the next book by Leah, even if I know that it is a children’s book.

Book review

Book review: Dexter is Delicious – Jeff Lindsay

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Do I really need to review this book? Or did I just want to say that I got Jeff to sign my copy of the book at the Perth Writers Festival? Or is it that adding Jeff Lindsay to my tags will raise my search profile? Who can really tell.

The reality is that all I need to say about this book is that is was very good and is a worthy edition to the Dexter series. Jeff continues to be one of my favourite authors, it may be time he became one of yours too (if he isn’t already). Also if the reading that Jeff delivered from his next book at the Perth Writers Festival – tentatively titled Double Dexter – is any indication of what Dexter fans can look forward to in September this year, then the series will continue strongly.

Now it would appear that I never have anything negative to say about the books that I read. I must love everything I read. I bloody wish!

The reality is that I have a very strict set of rules that I abide by in order to read a book.

  1. The book must be interesting enough for me to pick it up and start reading it.
  2. The book must maintain my interest enough to continue reading it.

Thus many books never make the grade to get to the review stage. It would be pretty strange to offer up a review of a book that I’ve never really read. It really isn’t the author’s fault that their books sucked so much that I never finished them. They can’t help if they spent so much time with mindless exposition that I’ve stuck my thumb in a meat slicer to prevent myself falling asleep. The author isn’t really responsible for spending so much time talking about the protagonist’s relationship with their cat and other meaningless crap. Thus when I fail to get more than 10-50 pages into a novel it is clearly my fault and denies me the right to reviewing the offending book. Which brings me to expanding my second rule:

  1. The book has ten pages to impress upon me the need to read further or else the book is mulching my fruit trees.
  2. The book then has until page 50 to convince me that the book isn’t mulch material with a passable first 10 pages.
  3. A third of the way through I’d better have been convinced to finish the book.

You see there is nothing worse than “sticking with a book” through sheer bloodymindedness. If the reward for ~400 pages of boredom is finishing the book and feeling that little tingle of accomplishment then really we could all do better. I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t have time to waste on finishing mediocre books (yes Stieg Larsson, I am talking about your incorporeal ass).

Book review

Book review: Judgement and Wrath – Matt Hilton

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For any avid reader there is an endless search on for another book that will entertain. If readers were to simply rely on recommendations from the usual sources we’d only ever read one book from each genre – regardless of how many books we actually read. Of course as a writer you are always on the lookout for another book to act as inspiration.

I took a chance on this book. There is a book sales van that delivers a select range of books to workplaces, taking the bookstore to the people too busy to go shopping, or so the theory goes. Every now-and-again the book van selection has something I would actually consider purchasing if I was ten years old. On even rarer occasions there is a book that actually looks interesting enough for me to buy. It was on one of these rare events that I stumbled across Judgement and Wrath.

I knew nothing of Matt Hilton when I bought this book. Happily upon finishing this book I am a firm fan. I have been rewarded with a really well written thriller that kept the pace up nicely. I literally plowed through the pages. It isn’t often that you get the chance to stumble upon an author completely by accident, usually someone recommends the author or a book.

If you like your thrillers then you will love this book.