Slow Burner by William Haggard

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

From the 1960s to the 1980s, William Haggard was an English writer of what he himself described as “suspense stories with a political background.”  Critics regarded him as one of the best writers in the genre of espionage novels, with the Sunday Express calling him “the adults’ Ian Fleming.”

A novel Haggard wrote in 1958 was Slow Burner, about the leakage of nuclear secrets. It introduced his series hero , Colonel Charles Russell of the fictional Security Executive, a shadowy unit connected to Military Intelligence. Russell ‘s Paul Drake is the highly skilled investigator Major Mortimer. Their conversations about cases rely on logical deduction and they toss around adverbs like “ex hypothesi.”  Like a don, but shrewd, Russell asks searching questions and Mortimer slices away with Occam’s Razor. So, it’s rather talky. “His plots were first-rate, his world-weary characters were slyly intelligent and manipulative, says thriller writer Christopher Fowler, “but a great many scenes ultimately consisted of men arguing in offices.”

But what conversations! His dramatic plots are played out by powerful figures in the public and private sectors. Haggard’s experience living and working overseas and in government gives his stories a genuine atmosphere. His executives, scientists, ministers, bureaucrats, and operatives of various stripes maneuver according to their own self-interested motives and schemes. The constant buzz of “What’s in it for me” lends authenticity.  Very much the old-style conservative like John Buchan, Haggard values objective acumen, discretion, and intelligent realism. Haggard’s protagonists  respect competence even in adversaries and detest crass behavior.

Mystery critic Robin Winks, in Detective Fiction: A Collection of Critical Essays (1988), notes: “What has given Haggard his readership is his unwillingness to shed blood unnecessarily, his sympathy and insight into all of his figures, who are seen less in the traditional roles of villain and hero than as actors in a stylish drama in which all are motivated by a reasonable self-interest, and his subtle, ironic, detached voice. His books are not for the impatient.”

The Lies of Locke Lamora by  Scott Lynch

Review by Bowden P.  (Trey)

The Lies of Locke Lamorra isn’t a good book. It isn’t a great book. It’s a really good book! I’ll admit it has some flaws that keep it from being a great book though.

Lies is about the adventures of Locke Lamorra, priest of the Crooked Warden (God of Thieves) and leader of a gang of second story men called the Gentleman Bastards. He’s also a near mythical con artist called the Thorn of Camorr, who preys upon the greed and gullibility of the nobles of Camorr. Normally, committing a crime against the nobility of Camorr simply isn’t done, because of the Secret Peace between the ruler of Camorr and the leader of Camorr’s underwold. The book is also about how Locke became a Gentleman Bastard, his friend Jean Tannen became one as well, the City of Camorr, its history and how all of these interact to make life interesting and adventurous for Locke, Jean and the rest of the Gentleman Bastards.

There are many characters involved – the Thiefmaker, Father Chains, Calo and Galdo Sanza, Bug, Capa Brava, Nazca Brava, her borthers, Don and Doña Salvara, and the Grey King all play prominent roles. However one gets left out in all the reviews I looked at: Camorr.

As readers, we get a fair amount of history through Chains education of the young Locke and info dump flash backs, that tell us how things came to the current state of affairs. I was particularly taken with the emergence of independent brothels, the tale of handball and revenge and why killing a Bondsmage is an incredibly bad idea. All of these little things give us the character of the city and its inhabitants. These become very important in how it shaped Locke, the Gentleman Bastards and the Grey King, just like a parent shapes a child’s personality and worldview.

All of these things are part of the arsenal of Chekhov’s guns that Lynch places in the book. From the alchemical gentling of animals and people, the plague that orphans Locke, how Capa Brava came to power and kept it, to the Pennance Day gladiatorial bouts against sea life and the professional gladiators that fight in them and the Secret Peace. All of these are hung, and eventually used.

Camorr’s character is also worth exploring. Its obviously inspired by Medieval and Renaissance Venice (and maybe, Merovinge). It is a center of shipping, drawing off the wealth of trade routes and industry. It has wealthy nobles and merchants, an organized police force and a secret police force. It also has Elderglass towers, skyscraping fortresses of the Eldren where the elite of the nobles make their homes. They’re also all but invulnerable to what humans can throw at them. Camorr is a vital and bustling place. It’s also a brutal one, with weekly hangings (including children), no organized charity, disappearances by the government, gang violence that is beyond the pale and regular gladiatorial bouts against vicious carnivorous sea life. It’s an interesting place. Not one I’d want to live in, but I don’t mind visiting though.

I liked the characters that were fleshed out, specifically Jean and Locke. I liked Locke for all that he is mostly larceny and nerve. He’s also human with flaws. He loves a woman that’s a thousand miles away from him because of their relationship. He’s loyal to a fault. He also has a mind like a broken backed snake and is greedy enough to attempt stealing the stars from the firmament. And, he can’t fight worth a damn. He’s not an omni-competent hero, but very competent within his vocation.

My biggest gripe with the character of Locke Lamorra is that in the early portions of the book, he seems overly favored by the author. He’s wonderful, the best conman in the world who’s got a gang at his back and pulling off the most successful con ever. This is eased when the Grey King and the Falconer take him down several pegs and take away what he values most.

Jean is interesting. He looks big and soft – like the scion of a merchant house, a scholar or a noble. He’s also very good with numbers, able to do complex sums in his head and likes to read. He’s also the muscle of the Gentleman Bastards, being both a brutally effective fighter and possibly a chosen of the Lady of Long Silences (the Goddess of Death). He’s an interesting mix of traits and feels real – sort of a two fisted Meyer Lansky.

Now, the book does have weaknesses. Many of the characters never move beyond brief sketches, particularly Nazca, Calo, Galdo and Bug. This is a weakness because we’re supposed to emphasize with Locke and Jean when horrible things happen, and they take vengeance. Because of the lack of depth, it felt forced. Another is the opposition. The Falconer particularly rankled me, because he is a mustache twirling villain. Or perhaps a child with a magnifying glass and an ant hill to torture. At his best, he’s petty, spoiled, thin skinned and never has been thwarted at anything before. Then he meets Locke… This isn’t something I’d expect from a mercenary mage. I’d expect a higher level of professionalism.

The Grey King is better though. He has reasons for what he does. In his own mind he is a hero for what he does and those reasons make sense for that. But then he goes well beyond what is expected from his actions and it takes him into the irredeemable. Still, he’s a sketch only gaining life near the end.

It also badly fails the Bechdel test. There are no female lead characters at all. Oh, Doña Salvara and the Countess Amberglass emerge in the last third of the book, but not soon enough. Worse, they spend their time talking about the Thorn of Camorr…

Still, it is a really good book, easily worth four stars.

Likes:

●        The fleshed out characters of Locke and Jean.

●        The city of Camorr.

●        The fight scenes.

●        Locke and Jean’s apprenticeships in the Gentleman Bastards.

●        The sheer number of Chekhov’s Guns scattered through the novel.

Dislikes:

●        The fact so many of the characters away from Jean and Locke never became more than sketches.

●        The Falconer. Yeah, he’s fun to throw peanuts at, but I’d have expected better.

●        The lack of strong female characters.

●        Apparent meta-ficitonal elements with Locke seeming like a Marty Stu.

Suggested for: Fans of the Merovingean Nights series, The Sting, Vorkosigan series, The Golden Globe and, maybe, The Name of the Wind. Also for fans of heroic rogues and thieves.

In the Company of Vampires by Katie MacAlister

Review by Cynthia F. (frazerc)

In the Company of Vampires

Dark Ones #8, Ben & Fran #3

Publication Date: 11/2/2010

Pages: 334

This is the third in the Ben and Fran books. The first two, Got Fangs? And Circus of the Darned, were young adult novels. This one is not. It takes place five years after the previous two and Fran has broken off with Ben, graduated from college and finds herself still miserable.

The action starts off with the kidnapping of Fran’s roommate. During the rescue (by Fran of course) it becomes apparent that Loki is at the root of the kidnapping. (Norse gods have long memories.) When Fran calls her mother, only to find that her mother is missing, she fears the worst. Fran immediately makes plans to head for Europe and the GothFaire, only to be interrupted by the arrival of her Vikings from book 2. It seems that Freya sent them to help her get rid of Loki using the necklace. Unfortunately she left the necklace in Europe so it is not immediately accessible. Her Vikings insist on going along with her. (Fortunately Freya provided them with their own Visa card so the only problem is convincing them they have to leave their weapons behind.)

She arrives at the GothFaire only to discover a wide range of problems. Ben is there and with another woman. (Yes she blew him off but she hadn’t really expected him to move on – after all, she hasn’t.) Imogen is there but the necklace isn’t and her mom is still missing. While checking through her mom’s things for clues she finds a birth certificate indicating she has an older half-sister she never knew about.

Like the other books this one has lots of wacky details; the town where the GothFaire is currently located is competing for a Wagnerian opera company so everyone is wearing Wagnerian costumes (including cross-dressing mermaid cabdrivers) and frequently bursting into song. Her Vikings have gone shopping and are now being Viking ninjas (based on having seen a ninja movie on TV) and have picked up new weaponry.

The plot concerns rescuing mom, saving shape shifters, confronting Loki, and of course resolving Ben and Fran’s relationship problems.

All around a satisfying read.

Ben and Fran

1.  Got Fangs? (2005)

2.  Circus of the Darned (2006)

Confessions of a Vampire’s Girlfriend (omnibus of 1 & 2)

3.  In the Company of Vampires

Dark Ones

1. A Girl’s Guide to Vampires (2003)

2. Sex and the Single Vampire (2004)

3. Sex, Lies and Vampires (2005)

4. Even Vampires Get the Blues (2006)

5. The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires (2007)

5. Bring Out Your Dead (2006) (in Just One Sip)

6. Zen and the Art of Vampires (2008)

7. Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang (2009)

8. In the Company of Vampires (2010)

9. Much Ado About Vampires (2011)

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie By Alan Bradley

Review by Cheryl G. (Poncer)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It had a bit of everything, a murder mystery, some social history, interesting tidbits of science and a precocious 11 year-old protagonist.

Flavia de Luce, the protagonist and narrator of the book is a budding chemist, pretty much left to fend for herself in a dysfunctional household in England. The story is set in the 1950’s.

Early one morning, Flavia somehow stumbles upon a dying body in the garden of the mansion she and her family call home and sets out to solve the murder.

She is up against some fun characters, a father who barely communicates with anyone since the death of his wife, 2 older sisters who are more interested in looks and books than in their little sister, some officious police officers and some quirky neighbors.

Despite Flavia’s best efforts to solve the mystery of the dead man, police Inspector Hewitt thwarts her at every turn. He reminds her that “King George is not frivolous”.  Flavia isn’t a frivolous child, though.   She is a bright, and fun to follow through this book.

I am looking forward to reading the next book in this series, The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag.

Blindsight by Peter Watts

Review written by Bowden P. (Trey)

Y’know, I had no idea what this would be like when I started it, and its compelling stuff. Yeah, the protagonist isn’t very likeable, but he does get the job done. Its a great, if rather chilling read. The cover blurb does a decent job of summarzing what sets the ball in motion and what the ball is – the spaceship Theseus and crew of trans- to post-humans.

It also skips over some of the most important things in the book: The nature of consciousness and whether its an advantage or not in evolutionary terms. This is the big idea of the book and the one guaranteed to unsettle a reader.

Our viewpoint character is Siri Keeton, the “synthesistan informational topologist with half his mind gone” of the blurb. Siri, is unique. He is not nice, hell, at the start of the book he might only be human by DNA, not how he acts. This leads to some interesting flashbacks and a moment of genuine sympathy for him. I will admit it might be better to say “half his brain” though – he’s had hemispherectomy to treat epileptic seizures.

Siri’s world isn’t a nice one. People routinely opt to live in virtual fantasies. There’s an ongoing insurgency over it where the insurgents use bio-weapons. War crimes from the other side are common as well. Drugs and hormones to alter mental states to something more useful are widespread. Corporations do things that lead to the creation of the vampires that are ethically challenged at best. Genetic manipulation is common – so common that one of Siri’s child hood friends is unusual for his lack of it.

But that’s just Earth. The Theseus is a lovely thing – fueled by antimatter teleported to it and assembled there, with synthesizers that can handle building almost anything so long as it has mass and is able to reconfigure itself at need. This is just the vehicle that gets them to the real action that takes place well beyond the Solar System. There an alien spacecraft has been found and is busy ‘terraforming’ a brown dwarf. Think about that for a moment and what it involves. Our intrepid band of posthumans goes out to explore and discovers an environment more hostile than can be imagined. It routinely destroys their probes and has effects on the crew even in their most heavily shielded suits. It makes communication difficult at best and meddles with their brains like transcranial magnetic stimulation but creating temporary ‘brain damage.’

Once it actually gets to first contact, its scary.

Folks, I love this book. Its five stars easy. Watts does things that many hard science fiction writers routinely fail to do – he writes well. His characters are characters, not caricatures. What he writes is darkly humorous, clever, moving and powerful. And the ideas he works with are huge, world shaking and dangerous. Good stuff to play with and he does it with human characters.

Likes: Neat neurobiology bits; Good characters; Big ideas; Some humor where needed; Big questions; Good writing; Neat toys.

Dislikes: I want more, darn it.
Suggested for fans of A User’s Guide to the Brain by John J. Ratey, Oliver Sachs, Kluge by Gary Marcus, A Mind of Its Own by Cordelia Fine, Scott Bakker’s Neuropath, and good (if dark) science fiction.

And if you can’t find it in print, head to www.rifters.com where Creative Commons Licensed version of Blindsight lives.

Tall Dark and Wolfish by Lydia Dare

Review by Cynthia F. (frazerc)

Good read but stay away if you ‘doona ken’ dialect…  The plot in the first book [A Certain Wolfish Charm] was driven by the fact the hero [Simon, our hero’s oldest brother] was a werewolf.  In this one, Ben has lost the ability to change and has gone to Scotland looking for a someone who might be able to heal him.  What he finds is the daughter of the healer he sought, and the coven of witches she belongs to.

The book is charming and funny – the characters are people you would like to know.  The plot is not hugely intense but unfolds at a steady pace.  Could you read this as a stand alone?  Yes.  There’s not a whole lot of overlap – most of the story takes place at the same time as book 1.  At the end of book 1, the middle brother heads to Scotland to find out what’s going on with his brother and he arrives about two-thirds of the way through.  As always, I do recommend reading them in order…

A Certain Wolfish Charm

Tall, Dark and Wolfish

The Wolf Next Door

The Taming of the Wolf

The Case of the Fiery Fingers by Erle Stanley Gardner

Book Review by Matt B.  (BuffaloSavage)

Erle Stanley Gardner turned out 80-some novels starring lawyer Perry Mason. There’s bound to be a few clunkers. So, chary readers new to Gardner may wonder which is a good ‘un. I’d highly recommend The Case of the Fiery Fingers (1951).

A practical nurse tells Perry that she suspects that a husband is going to do in his invalid wife. She asks Perry’s advice on how to prevent the murder. The sneaky husband, however, gets the drop on the LPN by having her arrested for theft. In an outstanding courtroom scene in Chapter Five, Perry defends his client by hilariously twisting a witness in knots. Chapter Five is one of the longest and best chapters Gardner ever wrote.

The invalid wife is indeed ushered out of this vale of tears before her time. Perry defends the victim’s sister, who is looking at the gas chamber like a rabbit looks at headlights.  As Perry gets ready for the trial, the despondent client is no help at all. Other client and police shenanigans must be endured by Perry, his secretary Della Street, and the PI Paul Drake.

Gardner’s strong point is his ability to tell a story briskly and concisely with a minimum of character development, stripped down exposition, and tons of dialogue. While his novels have flashes of humor, Gardner is not a funny guy. But in The Case of the Fiery Fingers he’s uncharacteristically droll. He describes Paul’s typical posture:  “Drake jackknifed himself into the overstuffed chair, swung his knees up over the arm, clasped his hand behind his head, and eyed Mason with a bored indifference that was completely deceptive.”

Perry speeds and turns recklessly so Paul drives. But in one scene Della drives as maniacally as Perry. “You’re hitting fifty and not giving a damn about anything” Paul yelps. Della coolly replies “Well, I get you there in less time, so you don’t suffer so long, Paul.”

Besides respecting women who drive as expertly as Danica Patrick, Gardner liked a healthy woman with a healthy appetite. Della orders “a nice thick steak done medium rare, a stuffed, baked Idaho potato with lots of butter, some toasted French bread, a bottle of Tipo Chianti . . .” Ah, 1951 – when only health food enthusiasts worried about carbs.

Also, along “good old days” lines, this novel has keen retro expressions like “the little minx,”  “as tough as taxes,” and  “set one’s cap on somebody.” The characters sport evocative names like Nathan, Imogene, Harvey, Virginia, Georgiana and Marta.

Readers toying with the idea of reading a Perry Mason novel won’t go wrong with The Case of the Fiery Fingers.