Top Tags

Tag Crime

The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri (Ian’s book 4, 2011)

Another Italian detective, but this one’s home grown. Salvo Montalbano is a Sicilian police inspector and this is his first appearance in print.

The Shape of Water (Montalbano 1)
Andrea CamilleriPicador 2005, Paperback, 256 pages, £7.99

The story concerns a man found dead in a car in a wasteground well known as a trading place for prostitutes and drug dealers. [...]

A Venetian Reckoning by Donna Leon (Ian’s book 3, 2011)

Modern crime fiction doesn’t go in for humanity all that much. There are faults, for sure, but fondness and family bonds that aren’t late ripped apart from a threat from an avenging psychopath are rare.

A Venetian Reckoning
Donna LeonPan Books 1996, Mass Market Paperback, 240 pages, £6.99

Donna Leon’s Inspector Brunetti is the most human detective I’ve come across, [...]

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy (Sara’s book 12, 2010)

Cormac McCarthy is one of those writers whose work I have long looked forward to diving into, but have held back for some reason or other. (In this case, because I want to read the body of work as a whole, preferably on some hazy sun-filled holiday.)
I read The Road last year and found it [...]

Black Hearts by Jim Frederick (Sara’s book 8, 2010)

Black Hearts – full title: Black Hearts: One platoon’s descent into madness in Iraq’s Triangle of Death – is the harrowing story of one company’s experience of war in Iraq. This company – Bravo Company of the Black Heart Brigade – is notable because four of its soldiers committed one of the highest-profile war crimes [...]