Under Review

Since it's Christmas, and since Christmas is - allegedly - the season of giving, I thought I wouldn't be a total grouch and would join in the spirit of the season by giving you my thoughts on a few books I've read recently. These reviews have originally appeared on my Facebook page, but since I don't let any old riff-raff be my Facebook friend (you have to be special riff-raff indeed to be my Facebook buddy!), I thought I'd make them slightly more accessible and inflict them on the public at large.

The reviews I've written in recent times have been reasonably lengthy, but as a taster I thought I'd give you a couple of my shorter reviews for your delectation. So here goes...

The Shearer's Tale by Tom Molomby

Sydney lawyer Tom Molomby brings his precise forensic skills to bear on a case from the first half of 20th century rural Australia. When a shop keeper named Henry Lavers went missing near the NSW town of Forbes, an intensive manhunt failed to locate either his body or those responsible for his presumed murder. Ten years later, shearer Fred McDermott was tried and convicted for Lavers' murder. Thus began a struggle for justice which ended in a Royal Commission and McDermott's release - and yet, he was denied the justice that was his due. Molomby expertly dissects the case, revealing the failures in the system - and the questionable investigation - that resulted in McDermott's imprisonment, an experience that blighted the rest of his life. An engaging and disturbing read..

On. Off: A Novel by Colleen McCullough

Once you get past the somewhat melodramatic narrative style and the frankly absurd names attached to some of the characters, this is actually quite an engaging thriller set in provincial Connecticut in the late 1960s. A series of grusome murders centred on an elite medical research facility are uncovered - and the job of hunting down the perpetrator is given to police detective Carmine Delmonico (a man, despite the name). Thus begins an investigation into a group of frankly bizarre research scientists, one of whom hides a dark obssession. The pace is excellent, the characters well-drawn and multi-dimensional, the story told with sympathy, insight, and black humour. The identity of the killer is given away quite early (although you have to be paying attention to spot it) and the end carries a twist that is jolting if unconvincing; the minor sub-plot on race-relations is just padding and lets you now well in advance the killer's ultimate fate. But overall, an engaging, if not entirely satisfying, read.

Killer In The Rain by Raymond Chandler

What a delight! This superb collection of Chandler's shorter fiction introduces the characters Carmaday and John Dalmas - the prototypes for his much more famous creation, Phillip Marlowe. Nobody wrote noir fiction better than Chandler, and his prose is full of light and shadow, etching a wonderful portrait of the sleazy side of life in between-the-wars Los Angeles. Dalmas and Carmaday are tough, vulnerable, cynical, sentimental, wise-cracking smart-guys and occassionally bumbling saps with a taste for blondes and red-heads and a penchant for getting belted over the back of the head. Crackling beneath the surface tension and the headlong action of the plots is a profound sympathy for the down-and-outs, for those who've caught the bad breaks or just been worn down by the daily grind; Chandler's compassion for humanity combines with his clear-eyed understanding of the darker motivations of the human psyche to produce a body of work that found its ultimate expression in such classics as The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, and The Long Goodbye. What is truly fascinating about this collection is the clearly visible genesis of many of these later works in the collection presented in this volume - fans of Chandler will experience a jolt of recognition as they read classic scenes from his novels that had their first outing in his early short fiction. Entertaining and fascinating from go to woe. My favourite quote: "She had the kind of eyes and figure that would make a bishop kick a hole in a stain-glass window".

Well, that's your lot for the moment...more reviews to come!

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: Critics are merely failed writers - but then, so are most writers! (T S Eliot)