Month: January 2019

William Boyd is one of those skilled practitioners with ardent fans who straddles popularity and acclaim. My own reading splits about halfway between bedazzlement and a sense of stasis, and his latest, “Love Is Blind,” is more of the latter. His previous outing, “Sweet Caress,” swept up the life of a female photographer, in his latest we follow Brodie Moncur, a piano tuner at the tail end of the 19th century, and his adventures of the heart and profession across England and Europe. Boyd adroitly spurs the action from chapter to chapter, our hero and his love and his enemies are vividly drawn, and the period-piece locales are excellent. But when all is said and done, it’s the story of a life well depicted but ultimately bearing a flat lack of purpose. An enjoyable read.

Knowing Matt Scudder, loner New York PI, defines one as a crime fiction fan from three decades ago, and seeing Lawrence Block release the novella “A Time to Scatter Stones” had the heart pattering. Both Scudder and his creator helped form me as reader and writer (who can forget Block’s inspired how-to books?). So it pains me to report more disappointment than reading pleasure. The story is a straightforward one, very Block-ish in its subtle unfolding – Scudder is intro’d by Elaine his wife to a prostitute who is trying to get out of the game but threatened by a creepy client – but “straightforward” can mean simplistic, and this tale unfolds as ho-hum. The climax foreshadows itself. Much of the novella is discursive, riffy conversation between the married couple or with the prostitute, and while Block is master at this stuff, the gentle pace numbs quickly. If you like New York locales, you’ll appreciate the detailed street color. All told, this is a completist’s pleasure in a minor key but would baffle any newcomer to Block’s oeuvre.

Heaven for a mystery buff is a treat like “November Road,” the fourth book from Oklahoman Lou Berney. He puts three memorable characters on the road from New Orleans to Las Vegas in the weeks after JFK’s assassination: a loyal Mafia gangster fleeing a mop-up operation; the hit man sent to track hm down (who chillingly reminded me of Cormac McCarthy’s Chigurh); and a housewife fleeing her husband with two young daughters. In time-honored noir fashion, we know nothing good’s going to come out of the journey unless supreme sacrifices are made. Berney slaps us fully into the three lives and knits the crackerjack plot together with a sure hand and measured pace. I felt dread on my shoulders from the very first page. The writing is first rate: never verbose but gently comprehensive, with lovely phrasing and forward momentum. One of the standouts of 2018.

A sci-fi superstar with around twenty novels over three-plus decades, Kim Stanley Robinson used to be a reliable go-to for hard science fiction with a heart. He always adds something to the canon in terms of science extrapolations but in the past he also told smart stories with believable characters. Not so with “Red Moon,” which accrues some credit for fascinating details of what a colonised Moon would actually be like, but falls down badly on plot and characterisation. “Red Moon” revolves around a young American moon neophyte who stumbles into Chinese intrigue on moon and earth, a high-ranking minister’s daughter agitating, and a famous travel reporter. Their combined story shows promise at the start but fades into tedium, and all three characters are as alive as coffins. What a disappointment.

“Trainspotting” was Irvine Welsh’s peak moment, a quarter century ago, and what a moment it was: scabrous, funny, and Scottish as could be. Since then Welsh has reprised his four mismatched characters three more times, and now we have a fifth outing, “Dead Men’s Trousers.” It’s 2015 and Mark Renton is a manager of DJs, still travelling and using and swearing. Enter Franco Begbie, apparently reformed from his amok ways and a successful artist. Enter Sick Boy, still a no-good pimp. Enter Spud, reduced to beggardom. Each of them has his day in the sun, in a plot that careens without much purpose but with enough spark were it not for one sorry outcome: while I laughed all the way through “Trainspotting,” this novel is just not funny. Oh, a couple of chuckles emerged but most of the wild scenes were, simply, silly wild scenes. Welsh writes with huge flair, using his trademark Scottish vernacular (some readers will baulk at this, it takes some getting used to), but I turned the final page with a sigh. Vim and vigor but a rickety plot and mere chuckles.

In “The Luck Theory,” a fast-moving modern thriller, a troubled Special Forces veteran races to discover the killer of his estranged brother, a super-geek with a sensational new theory, a theory perhaps linked to his winning lottery ticket. A serpentine plot rockets onward, the bit-part characters are well drawn, and our hero’s inner troubles are well portrayed. The denouement works well. What holds this book back is the almost clumsy first-person, present-tense style. Heaven knows this chosen point of view is a tough one to render well, and Hamre doesn’t get there. I found the style grew more on me toward the end but that nagging sense of something not quite right did blunt my enjoyment. Nonetheless, a satisfying, complex read.