Kuratierte Notizen & Neuigkeiten zur Kriminalliteratur | A sheet of notes & news about crime fiction
»If Follow Her Home doesn’t necessarily render that “scorching bleakness” viscerally, then it does affectingly explore the reasons we continue to pursue it, with relish.«
Sam Freilich
The First Cut is the Deepest: Sam Freilich on Follow Her Home, the debut novel by Steph Cha. Read the review at Los Angeles Review of Books.
»Reading A Curious Man, it’s easy to see the hunger into which Ripley tapped still raging. In his conclusion, Thompson notes that Ripley’s “burning ghats in India, shrunken heads in Ecuador” would likely seem tame today alongside the excesses available on reality TV shows like Fear Factor and Bizarre World.
Megan Abbott
Author Megan Abbott about the biography A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert “Believe It Or Not!” Ripley by Neal Thompson. Her review at Los Angeles Review of Books.
»There are some places where Weird Realism seems to fail, most notably when Harman makes evaluative claims about other writers; he doesn’t seem content to merely situate Lovecraft among the likes of Proust and Joyce, but suggests, if only briefly, that he surpasses them.«
Brian Kim Stefans
Brian Kim Stefans about the non fiction book Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy by Graham Harman. His review at Los Angeles Review of Books.
»As novelist Jean-Patrick Manchette says, the crime genre is “the great moral literature of our time,” exposing society’s ills in a way no other narrative can. Having a flawed person at the center is de rigeur; making a flawed woman the focus seems even more fashionable. But are we looking at women whose morality is questionable, or are we seeing women for whom morality is an unsolvable question?«
Jen Vafidis
Jen Vafidis about the crime drama Top of the Lake by Jane Campion. Her review at Los Angeles Review of Books.
»The Casual Vacancy, though described as a “tragicomedy,” is for the most part a satire, a parody of constantly moving targets: provincial towns, Britain’s politics, 21st century society. Rowling treats these targets the way she views the world as an artist — from a distance.«
Roxana Badin
Roxana Badin about the latest novel by J.K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy. Her review you will find at the Los Angeles Review of Books.
»A clear message of Argo is that the CIA is constrained from telling us all the good things they do in secret to keep the nation safe. According to Jenkins’s research, this is a repeated lament around the Agency that sometimes reaches the screen, as when the President in In the Company of Spies blurts out, “When the Agency is good, it’s spectacular, and no one even knows!” Argo perfectly realizes this CIA desire.«
Tom Hayden
Tom Hayden about the non fiction book The CIA in Hollywood : How the Agency Shapes Film and Television by Tricia Jenkins. His review at the Los Angeles Review of Books.
»Edgar Allan Poe is everywhere. The Following, featuring murders based on Poe, occupies prime time Monday on Fox, and memories of Long Beach Opera’s production Philip Glass’s The Fall of the House of Usher linger on in San Pedro. There’s a story, true as far as I know, that when Roger Corman was in the middle of shooting House of Usher (1960) — one of his eight Poe adaptations, most of them starring Vincent Price — he heard that a house had just burned down in the Hollywood Hill.«
Geoff Nicholson
Looking for Edgar Allan: Geoff Nicholson about Poe and the Walk of the Worlds. His essay at Los Angeles Review of Books.
Dark, Darker, Darkest: New and Republished Crime reviewd by writer Cullen Gallagher. His view at Los Angeles Review of Books.
»For better and for worse there is doubtlessly “something off-center, queer, strange” lurking in the pages of Death in Breslau, but in its worst moments, it unfolds like a forced repeat performance, an unsuccessful revival. It is definitely worth a look, but one’s valuable time might be better spent with the talents who inspired this adventure.«
Rodger Jacobs
Nazi Noir: Death in Breslau by Marek Krajewski fails to ignite fully as a thriller, Rodger Jacobs says. His review of the first novel with Inspector Eberhard Mock you will find at Los Angeles Review of Books.
