This is a crime novel that has some fine deadpan humour, a poignant romance – Ryan falls for a young woman who has problems with the bottle – and also has elements of the Western. Ryan is a kind of latter-day bounty hunter.
A review of Bob Wade: Tribute to a Chess Master
Bob Wade: Tribute to a Chess Master is, first and foremost, a games collection. It collects together just under 250 of Bob Wade’s games, played between 1945 and 2006. There are 27 or 28 (see below) annotated games, with about a third annotated by Wade himself (and included among this number is a hard-fought draw with Bobby Fischer).
A review of Sybarite Among the Shadows by Richard McNeff
This is an unusual and intriguing novel and an entertaining foray into an earlier, stranger England. There are plenty of puns and amusing similes to smoothly move matters along (“The waiter was hovering over them with the forlorn air of the last penguin in the colony” is one) and Richard McNeff’s prose often gives sybaritic pleasure.
This is a story that transcends the limitations of “what actually happens” giving us a deeper sense of truth. What it succeeds at, is not so much uncovering the events that led to and followed the Eureka Stockade, but rather, creating a real, true sense of the people that lived then and what it means in terms of who we all are now.
Interview with Helen Townsend
The author of Above the Starry Frame talks about her “faction”, her characters, the Eureka Stockade and what it means, on the major themes of her book, and lots more.
A review of The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Though McCarthy resists the urge to give the reader too much hope—things can never be made right again–the memories of the boy, of trout that smell of moss in your hand; the “vermiculate patterns” of a world that once was, of the enduring conversations between a boy and his father, remain beautiful. And for his readers, these are things we still have now.
A review of The Blind Rider by Juan Goytisolo
The Blind Rider is a short, intense novel difficult to compare with others in the European canon; there is almost nothing like it. Mr Palomar comes close in intention, perhaps, but The Blind Rider wholly lacks Calvino’s sense of play. It is unrelentingly dark with dread and despair, as serious and unforgiving as Goya’s greatest art.
A review of Down the Nile – Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff by Rosemary Mahoney
Mahoney has a marvelous eye for both landscape and people, giving the reader a sense of really seeing through her eyes. She also has a wicked sense of humor and narrates the many astonishing conversations she has with various (mostly male) acquaintances, who simply cannot fathom the ways of western women.
A review of Cripple Creek by James Sallis
There are echoes of crime fiction of the past – one wonderful minor character, Doc Oldham, could have stepped off the pages of at least two William Riley Burnett novels – and a gamut of genre pleasures. The greatest pleasure, though, is in how the story unfolds. It is an exercise in enchantment.
A review of How To Make Your Book Stand Out in a Crowd by Dave and Lillian Brummet
Why would they even think of your book when they decide that a book is what they’re going to buy? The answer is all about how effectively you’ve marketed yourself and your book. So easy to read, reference books like Purple Snowflake Marketing’s How to Make Your Book Stand Out in a Crowd (and it really is a crowd, and becoming more crowded all the time) are very important for authors.