Kuratierte Notizen & Neuigkeiten zur Kriminalliteratur | A sheet of notes & news about crime fiction
»But the main emphasis here is hardly on gloom. It is on the prodigious research and love of trivia that inform Mr. Brown’s stories (this one makes mincemeat of all those factoid-heavy wannabes, like Matthew Pearl’s Dante Club), the ease with which he sets them in motion, the nifty tricks (Dante’s plaster death mask is pilfered from its museum setting, then toted through the secret passageways of Florence in a Ziploc bag) and the cliffhangers.«
Janet Maslin
Author Dan Brown plays games with time, gender, identity, famous tourist attractions and futuristic medicine in his new thriller Inferno, says Janet Maslin. Her review at The New York Times.
»Perhaps his dark side helps explain why The Friedkin Connection includes a picture of the demon Pazuzu — and why Pazuzu is a major player in what Mr. Friedkin calls “the film for which I’ll probably be remembered.”«
Janet Maslin
From Crashes to Exorcism: Janet Maslin about the memoir The Friedkin Connection by director William Friedkin. Why Mr. Friedkin saw monsters and wore jockstraps – find out at Maslin’s review at The New York Times.
»A Delicate Truth, John le Carré’s new thriller, is anything but delicate: it’s ponderous, heavy-handed and obvious — everything that his wonderful early Smiley novels, which traded in moral ambiguity and psychological nuance, were not.«
Michiko Kakutani
A slating review about the latest novel A Delicate Truth by John le Carré comes from Michiko Kakutani. Her view on this “tendentious” novel you can read at the New York Times.
Marilyn Stasio about four new crime novels by Anne Perry, David Morrell, R. B. Chesterton and Jon Talton. Her reviews can be read at The New York Times.
»And while the few Americans in A Delicate Truth are not to be loved, their British counterparts are even more despicable, particularly the New Labour politicians who have clearly disappointed le Carré the most deeply, having marched willingly with America into Iraq.«
Olen Steinhauer
In John le Carré’s new novel shortsightedness, hypocrisy, lies and unfettered greed plague the “post-imperial, post-cold-war world”, Olen Steinhauer says. His review of A Delicate Truth can be read at The New York Times.
»NOS4A2, as in Nosferatu, F. W. Murnau’s classic vampire movie, loves playing with words. The book’s villain is a wizened ghoul who tries to lure children to a place where it is always Christmas, with fun features like a Sleigh House, and you don’t have to be Cassandra to know there’s something nasty about that. And NOS4A2 is not really a vampire story, anyway; Mr. Hill’s imagination is much more far-ranging than that.«
Janet Maslin
A biker chick is the hero of Joe Hill’s new horror novel, NOS4A2. A review by Janet Maslin at The New York Times.
»One of the things I like most about British mystery novels (including Kate Atkinson’s)is the combination of good writing and a certain theatrical bravado. Their authors enjoy showing us how expertly they can construct a puzzle, then solve it: the literary equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Life After Life inspires a similar sort of admiration, as Atkinson sharpens our awareness of the apparently limitless choices and decisions that a novelist must make on every page, and of what is gained and lost when the consequences of these choices are, like life, singular and final.«
Francine Prose
Kate Atkinson’s novel follows the many alternate courses her protagonist’s destiny might have taken, Francine Prose says. Her review of Life After Life by Kate Atkinson you can read at The New York Times.
Columnist Marilyn Stasio on four new crime novels and thrillers by Charlotte Link, Peter Lovesey, Philip Kerr and D.A. Mishani. Her reviews at The New York Time.
»Now Mr. Graeber has compiled the full Cullen story into The Good Nurse, a stunning book with a flat, uninflected title that should and does bring to mind In Cold Blood.«
Janet Maslin
Charles Cullen may have been the most prolific serial killer in history. Charles Graeber has corresponded with Mr. Cullen and has now published the story of this former night nurse. The Good Nurse : A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder is the title of this non fiction book and Janet Maslin reviews it at The New York Times.
»Best-selling authors have the market power to negotiate a higher implicit e-book royalty in our advances, even if our publishers won’t admit it. But writers whose works sell less robustly find their earnings declining because of the new rate, a process that will accelerate as the market pivots more toward digital.«
Scott Turow
Opinion: The new, global electronic marketplace is rapidly depleting authors’ income streams, says writer Scott Turow. His view abouth the slow death of the American author you can read at The New York Times.
