One Man's Opinion: THE APRIL DEAD by ALAN PARKS

The first of my summer holiday reads this year was The April Dead by Alan Parks. It's the fourth in the Harry McCoy series and it's another stunner in my humble opinion. 

Things kick off with an explosion in a flat where the dead body of a bomb maker is found and there's evidence of a wounded victim who is nowhere to be seen. Later explosions will put Glasgow on full alert and everything seems to point to a full-scale outbreak of carnage when April finally arrives. Matters become more pressing when links to the Irish paramilitary are suspected and the British secret services decide they're not happy about McCoy sniffing around too closely. 

Steve Cooper, childhood friend of McCoy, is about to come out of prison and something seems off. There's internal wrangling in the underworld and the only certainty is that things are not going to be sorted with handshakes and pats on the back. 

And there's a missing American submariner from the US naval base whose father manages to grab McCoy's attention and has him investigating the case when he senses there may be overlaps between this and his other work. 

The April Dead is thoroughly entertaining. Time and place are created very strongly and it can seem as if Parks has picked you up and placed you directly in the scene so you can see, hear, smell and feel what's going on around you (think virtual reality without any technology). McCoy and Cooper are terrific characters and the way that loyalties and morals are played with when they get together adds a great extra dimension. Plot is also terrific and the pacing is bang on. 

There are places where apparent coincidences are stretched to the point of causing raised eyebrows, but those moments can be easily forgiven on account of the strength of the story and because of the complexity that these elements bring to the plot. 

Seriously good and very entertaining. Cracking Scottish crime. 

Dig This Hole: The Complete Flipbook from NeoText

Moundsville State Prison was rotten to the core. The guards were almost as crooked as the cons. Gangs ruled the jail, and Davie Ingram ruled the gangs.

But this time Davie's crew picked the wrong man to shake down. He's a man who won't take kindly to seeing a video of his brother being stomped by half a dozen vicious goons. A man who's a professional in the art of making people pay. Not with money, but with blood.

A man named...HOLE.

Normally, an appetizer like this one would have you clicking links and finding out where you can get hold of this gem.

Not this time. 

The NeoText Flipbook below allows you to read the whole thing. Not only that, you get to delight in the illustrations as put together by Eduardo Risso.  All you need to do is grab yourself a coffee, fasten your seatbelt and click on the image below. The book will expand to fill your screen before your very eyes. 

 

 If you're interested, there's also a kindle version available via Amazon in the UK and in the US. 

Let me know what you think in the comments. I'd love to hear what you have to say.

One Man's Opinion: THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT by WALTER TEVIS

 'Sometimes, her head reeling, she would feel in the depth of her stomach an anger as intense as the pain of a burst abscess in the jaw- a toothache so potent that nothing but drink could alleviate it. Sometimes the drink had to be forced against a rejection of it by her body, but she did it. She would get it down and wait and the feelings would subside a bit. It was like turning down the volume.'

Like many, I watched The Queen's Gambit on Netflix and delighted in the production. Captivated by the opening, it also was something of a slow-burner for me as I was unsure the substance would prevail over the style. I should have had no doubts and in the end I was totally satisfied. 

Which led me to the book. 

I had a similar experience of watching a Walter Tevis story before seeing it on the page almost forty years ago. I went to see The Hustler at the Gate Cinema in Notting Hill. Part of the attraction was the promise of a free book, something I couldn't wait to read after watching the film again and the experience was totally rewarding. It was the same all over again with this one. 

The first thing I realised was that the adaptation of The Queen's Gambit is loyal to the original story. Not only does the sequence work, the characters may well have emerged straight from the pages.  

We open at the orphanage where Beth Harmon is to live out her early years. It's a cold place in the main and she has to squirrel away the grains of comfort where she can. These grains come in the form of an older girl, Jolene, the little green pills given out every day and the visits to the basement to learn about chess from the janitor there. 

Chess is the perfect world for Beth to occupy. Everything is in black and white, which is pretty much the way she understands most of the people she encounters. It soon becomes her preoccupation and, along with the medication, keeps her going. She visualises boards and games with a stunning understanding of the rules and memory for what she has learned from books and it's not long before she comes to the attention of a local chess club organiser. Being allowed to leave the orphanage for a tournament is no small thing and the experience is totally alien to her, as is a chess world that isn't ready to accept a newcomer of any kind, let alone one coming in the form of a young girl. 

Suffice to say, she's an amazing player and is required to overcome a series of issues in order to maximise her potential. 

Given that my chess knowledge is limited, the descriptions of the games make them hugely exciting; they're so good that I had to stifle cheers and tears when reading on the train. The characters are all sharply defined and even those who occupy little space are distinctive and interesting, particularly when seeing them through Beth's filter. Best of all, the notions of compulsion and addiction are plainly explored in a matter-of-fact way that really rang true to this particular reformed reader. 

The Queen's Gambit is truly a wonderful thing. Perhaps the images and the Technicolor merged into the words from the TV series, but I was too engrossed to give that much thought. Highly recommended whether you've watched or you haven't. 

Now back to searching out that old copy of The Hustler. 

One Man's Opinion: HE WHO HESITATES by ED McBAIN

Something of a novelty in 87th Precinct terms, the police are merely part of the backdrop rather than driving cases forward. 

Roger Broome's a big man. His visit to the city has been successful and he's sold all of the bowls and furniture he brought in from home. His mother's pleased with the result and he's ready to return, but something's not quite right. 

He chats to his landlady for a while and meets a beautiful woman working in a nearby drugstore. He buys the former a Valentine's Day card and the asks the latter to take the day off work in order to go out with him on a date. 

All the while, there's something in the back of his mind that won't let him rest. It's pricking his conscience and sees him hanging out outside the police station trying to work out whether he's ready to go in an report whatever passed the night before, the story of which is slowly revealed during reflective and/or obsessive moments throughout his day. 

The main police action takes place when his landlady reports a stolen fridge and Broome is interviewed as a possible suspect, but there's also a meeting with Parker who's in a bad mood and a little bit of stalking of Steve Carella. Their presence is so light that it's barely an 87th novel at all. Instead, it stands strongly by itself and adds a great new dimension to the series. 

Essentially, we're inside the mind of the criminal here. It's a position that has worked very successfully in a number of books and does so again during this one. The structure and balance between past and present creates significant engagement and the final outcome is expected and unexpected in equal measure. 

I imagine this isn't for everyone, but I really enjoyed it on the whole. The only reservations I have relate to the language of race, though there is balance between the couple in their burgeoning inter-racial relationship. 

Definitely one worth taking the time for and great to see McBain mixing things up a little, no doubt to stretch himself and prevent things becoming stale. 

 

 

One Man's Opinion: HOLE by GERRY BROWN (illustrated by EDUARDO RISSO)

Here's a turn up for the books, me reading a one-man-fighting-machine-against-the-odds thriller, something I've tended to avoid for quite a few years now. Without understanding quite why, it's a genre I avoid as it doesn't really engage me beyond the page-turning energy of trying to find out what's going to happen next (the edge of that energy slightly dulled by the knowledge that the protagonist is indestructible and will be able to use their black-ops skills to kick ass and summarise all defensive and attacking positions in the blink of an eye). In a nutshell, I read a Jack Reacher book once and really enjoyed it, but didn't (and won't) go back for more. 

The blurb for Hole reads:

It was the perfect shakedown.

Moundsville State Prison was rotten to the core. The guards were almost as crooked as the cons. Gangs ruled the jail, and Davie Ingram ruled the gangs.

The way it worked was Davie and his boys would isolate an inmate with no one to back him up. Hurt him, hurt him bad, on camera. Then send the video to the inmate's loved ones.

They wouldn't ask for much. Five, maybe ten thousand.

The first time.

Because if you didn't want your son, your nephew, your brother to play punching bag for the meanest motherfuckers in Moundsville, you had to pay again and again and again.

But this time Davie's crew picked the wrong man to shake down.

He's a man who won't take kindly to seeing a video of his brother being stomped by half a dozen vicious goons. A man who's a professional in the art of making people pay. Not with money, but with blood.

A man named...HOLE.

Hole has an interesting concept at its core. The idea that a prison gang can extort money by torturing an inmate is pretty cool. It works really well as a hook and, because Vint Hole is the man outside trying to save his brother, there's menacing energy in spades. 

Vint Hole is actually very engaging. He keeps himself to himself and anyone with any sense is going to him allow him to do that; the Warlords might have been wise to do their research first so they could have found this out. While trying to save his incarcerated brother, he needs to take on a mean and well-organised crew. The journey will take him back to his roots as well as into the middle of a nightmare.

It's a fast-paced read, is written well and has a couple of unexpected and inventive twists to add to the pleasure. Illustrations by Eduardo Risso bring an extra and pleasing dimension to the whole thing.

As with Reacher, I really enjoyed this but won't be dipping in for more. That said, if Reacher and his many offshoots/imitations are what you dig, you should get your spade out now as I suspect Hole is a treat you'll devour.   

One Man's Opinion: AX by ED McBAIN

'Uptown, in a slum basement, one cop missed death by four inches and another cop missed staying alive by four inches.'

When there's a reading slump here in the Bird house, I can usually rely on Ed McBain and the fighting 87th to shake me out of it. Ax certainly helped in that respect, watering barren landscapes to produce a brief flowering of enthusiasm for books. I'm hoping the plants will last all year, but am equally ready for the bloom to disappear as if it's a momentary oasis in a desert. 

As the title suggests, there's an axe (I'm adding the e out of habit, not to be obtuse) in this one. And there's a corpse that has been savaged by said axe. It's that of a janitor found in a dingy basement and it's not a pretty sight.

The discovery of the body leads Carella through a series of encounters with mothers and their children. There's the wood-chopping Sam and Mrs Whitson, the agoraphobic son of the janitor who stays at home to look after the vulnerable new widow, the curious boy and the nosey neighbour Mrs Moscowitz and the wonderful Mrs Teddy Carella and their own kids. This series of meeting provides the background to the story as interesting vignettes, but the investigation doesn't really kick in until these foundations have been laid. 

In the course of this novel we meet a great cast: ex cons, an informer, a bunch of veterans from the Spanish-American war, a psychiatrist and a bent cop. Each set piece is well handled, all the more so because Carella and Hawes take the lead, and allows us to circle the case without nailing anything down.

As the number of pages diminishes and a solution seems as far away as ever, there's a bolt from the blue. My initial feeling was one of being cheated- all the legwork and the stories and the answer falls into their lap (something that happens from time-to-time with the 87th). Only it doesn't and the false conclusion is yet another satisfying twist in the tale. 

Thanks go out to Ed McBain for bringing another dose of sanity into a crazy world. Well worth the read.   

BLOOD SENTENCE

 

BLOOD SENTENCE 

"Accomplished writing from one of the best authors in the UK." M.W. Craven, Sunday Times Bestselling author of the CWA Gold Dagger Washington Poe series

Three bodies, one suspect. That suspect is you…

When the unidentified corpse of an apparent suicide victim is found hanging above a complex pattern of forty photographs of children, Detective Inspector Jonah Pennance of the Met’s specialist Sapphire Unit is brought in to investigate.

A post-mortem reveals the suicide was murder, and Pennance realises he knows the man. But as the body count rises, all the signs point to a care home in Kent – a place that Pennance is all too familiar with.

The problem is the only person connecting the victims is Pennance – and he has a solid motive for wanting them dead… Can Pennance prove his innocence?

Perfect for fans of Ian Rankin, Stuart MacBride, and Peter James Blood Sentence is the first book in the explosive series featuring Detective Inspector Jonah Pennance.

What Others Say

"A compelling murder mystery with a multilayered and engaging new hero. A great read."
Mason Cross, author of the Carter Blake thriller series

"Keith Nixon is a sparkling crime fiction talent."
Howard Linskey, author of the Detective Ian Bradshaw crime series

"Takes the police procedural elements and gives them new life."
Luca Veste, author of the Murphy and Rossi crime series

"One hell of a writer."

Ken Bruen, author of the Jack Taylor novels

Available here.