Roland Nair reads the scent of his West African hotel room as, “All that you fear, we have killed.” As the narrator of Denis Johnson’s The Laughing Monsters, Nair offers a wry insider’s look at the African underworld of intelligence and those it seeks to know.
Book Reviews
The good, the bad, and the ugly about books I’ve recently read.
When Good Genes Go Very, Very Bad: Franck Thilliez’s Bred to Kill
With Bred to Kill, the second English release from the Inspector Sharko series (the sequel to Syndrome E), Franck Thilliez carves a niche for himself by wrapping his thrillers in science, wielding biology as other writers utilize dark streets and shady characters.
Horror Goes Global In Syndrome E
In Franck Thilliez’s Syndrome E, two seemingly unrelated cases bring two tortured detectives together, as they peel back layers of madness, conspiracy, and violence spanning multiple continents.
The Triumphant Apocalypse of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven
Station Eleven fell into a larger group of post-apocalyptic releases last year, but St. John Mandel approached things in a dramatically different way than the fear-based setting which defines much of the dystopian trend.
What does it look like Inside the Criminal Mind?
Far from a true crime story, where the brutality is shrouded in the mystery of motive and emotion, Samenow clinically lists his case studies, quoting the criminals where possible, and citing what he continuously calls “their errors in thinking.” Samenow argues that it is these errors in thinking, not growing up in bad neighborhoods or past abuse, that cause criminal behaviors.
Post-Christmas Alaskan Myth Review–Put on Your Snow Boots!
William Giraldi’s Hold the Dark comes at you quick and low, making no apologies for its sudden deaths and heartless plot twists. Revenge is sought, darkness is held at bay. Although it Hold the Dark was published in September of 2014, the story it tells isn’t a new one. This is the stuff of legend, this is a handful of Greek and Roman myths lost together in a snowstorm.
The Significant, Sad Case Of Alice Mitchell, Told By Alexis Coe in Alice + Freda Forever
Rather than building the facts into a single story line for the reader, Coe takes the reader on a historical journey, examining the implications of race, sex, and class in 1892 Memphis. This works well as the artifacts from the case are plentiful, and love letters, news headlines, and trial excerpts intertwine with Coe’s telling of the story, which feels dedicated to telling the story without sacrificing truth.
2014: My Year in Reading
I’m sad to say I haven’t yet reached my goal of reading all the books in the world, and I haven’t yet taught my cats how to read. I most certainly didn’t come close to reading all the books published in 2014. But I read a lot of great books this year. And others talked about the ones I haven’t yet gotten to, or passed over.
One Life Is Lost So Another Can Be Found In Amy Rowland’s The Transcriptionist
There is basic equipment required: a headset, a Dictaphone to play the tapes that must be transcribed, and patience, a willingness to become a human conduit as the words of others enter through her ears, course through her veins, and drip out unseen through fast-moving fingertips.
–Amy Rowland, THE TRANSCRIPTIONIST
Eva Hagberg’s It’s All In Your Head Takes A Hard Look At The Mindfuck Of Illness
It’s All In Your Head, Eva Hapberg’s thirty-six page Kindle Single, can be consumed in one sitting, like a tale told round a campfire, or a sad dinner with an old friend in which the conversation turns unexpectedly real. Her words have a desperate pace, a history of illness so short but so complicated that explanation of everything is necessary and almost compulsive.
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