One Man's Opinion: A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD by JENNIFER EGAN

 

Jennifer Egan is a writer whose work I've come to admire. Though I seem to have read her books in reverse order, that feels rather fitting for this title.

Good Squad is a difficult piece to describe. In my mind, it's like a collage of tissue-paper circles that appear to have been placed at random onto a canvas so that they overlap and interlink to form a captivating image of swirls and colours. Upon closer examination, it transpires that they've all been carefully positioned in such a way that the visual effect is maximised and the emotional responses compounded.

There are thirteen stories, each superbly rounded and with an intensity that would grace any anthology were they to be included as individual tales. They are linked together in clever ways, using characters and time periods to make them one powerful whole. 

I'm sure each reader will highlight their own particular interest as being core to proceedings. For me, it helped, initially, that the theme of the music industry was key, more so that it featured the trials and tribulations of moving on from the punk era into a world where those early rebellious cries became inevitably entangled with the world of commercialism. There are two characters who are at the heart of the collection and maintain the pulse, but there's a fantastically varied supporting cast who bring the pair to life.

The variety of stories is quite something and demonstrate that the mind of the author is vivid, inventive and unusual. Things that appear to appear simple on the surface emerge through the story-telling to be deep, moving and sometimes bizarre. 

In essence, for me this is all about journeys through life and the way tangents, relationships, failures and successes form the way people develop. As time goes on, older experiences become paler and less powerful, yet they continue to hold onto personality and decision making and are ever-influential in the present and future. Tragedies, mishaps, moments of madness, insight and good fortune are all in the melting pot and there isn't anyone out there who doesn't have a web of interaction and memory to explore.

Breaking down the stories to give a sense of what they're about would be a fruitless task. Perhaps it would be better to mention that I was fascinated by it all and there were moments in there where the kicks were hard, whether they be of joy, humour, pain or sadness.

Such a work should have been challenging for me given that my memory is poor and that names and places are problematic for me. The issue was removed for me relatively painlessly by gentle nudges and reminders that allowed me to find my place in a way that few could pull off. These hooks were never clumsy or obvious and I was grateful for that.  

It's not a novel (or at least, I don't think it is), yet it still needed an ending to leave me feeling totally satisfied. I've no idea how she pulled it off, but she did. Loose ends weren't exactly tied up, but everything fell into place. 

I loved the variety and the depth and imagine you will, too. I read this a couple of months ago and still hear the echoes every now and then. 

Captivating. 

 

Crediting the Editing

I've just finished working through the edits for my next novel, the third in the Rat Pack series which will be published by Down&Out Books later this year. The edit was by Chris Rhatigan and if you know his work, you'll also know that he made the process as painless as it could be. In tune with the style, fine attention to detail, can spot an error at a million paces, knows when the train has slipped off the track and when it's steaming ahead, picks up on character and point of view and even offers possible alternatives to those especially clunky sentences. What else could an author want? If you're looking for someone to work on your draft, you could do a lot worse and probably not much better. https://chrisrhatiganediting.com/ Highly recommended.

One Man's Opinion: THE MAN WHO DIED TWICE by RICHARD OSMAN

 

It doesn't seem like that long ago that I was reading and reviewing The Thursday Murder Club. In a nutshell, I found that to be refreshing, fun and intriguing in equal measure. I think I was also aware that the situation and the characters involved would make a follow-on difficult to pull off.

In many ways, I think The Man Who Died Twice is a pretty good sequel and does manage to create a highly-engaging tale that suits the murder club. 

Appearing from the past is Elizabeth's ex-husband, a man who has already died once and, given the title, may find his number's about to come up. He has the charm of Bond as well as the smugness born of being talented and good looking. While working on a secret-service case, he's fallen foul of dangerous gangsters over in the US. Thankfully, he has a personal guard to protect him and a place to hide out (the very same home where the Thursday Murder Club wait for their live's to fizzle out, where else?).   

There are dead bodies and tricks with smoke and mirrors and, for a while, there's that satisfying buzz of wondering what the hell's going on, which is accompanied by the joy of trying to puzzle it out before reality is revealed. Essentially, that makes it a winning cosy mystery; if that's your bag, this is one for the top of your list. 

While meeting up with our gang again is a welcome experience, The Man Who Died Twice doesn't quite match the excellence of book one. In the main, I think that's due to the situation of the setting and having to stretch to create a new and believable situation. The observation are just that bit less sharp, the diary entries of Joyce are less powerful as a way of moving on plot, the police are less involved and more stable in a way that reduces the impact of their story-lines, and there's a tad less chemistry between the group (and so not as much character development as I might have liked). 

TTMC was always going to be a tough act to follow. The second in the series has proved to be a solid and enjoyable follow-on. I'd still read a third, but do worry that a further contortion to find a suitable plot and another dilution due to familiarity may make it a step too far for me. 

Richard Osman is a fine writer who brings his own twist to the genre. His humour is particularly noteworthy and his timing is excellent. Overall, I'm recommending this to anyone who enjoyed the last one and to the cosy mystery fan. It would work as a standalone, but reading in order would be much more satisfying. I worry for book three (for surely there will be one), but there will be many who will lap up each and every title with zeal in a way that may even make this a series that will be viewed as a classic when the world has warmed to the point where paper self-combusts- get it while you can.    

News From Fahrenheit Press

 

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First off, we’re running one of our EPIC AMAZON PROMOTIONS - we published debuts novels in December 2020 and frankly they got swept away by the Christmas rush. These 4 books are some of the best debuts we’ve ever read and we’ve decided to circle around again and promote them as if they’re brand new books - so for a starter ALL FOUR OF THEM ARE FREE ON AMAZON this weekend."

The whole of their message is here. 

One Man's Opinion: DEATH NOTIFICATION AGENCY, VOLUME 1: THE REAPER (DNA BOOK 1) by JULIAN OLIVER MEIOJAS

 

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Here's one for fans of the hard-boiled hero who like their protagonist to be caught up in something big. This one will tick all your boxes and then some. 

Told in the first person by a reaper, Ramsay Cames, we know the setup and the energy force that will drive the story from the first few pages. 

This one has snappy everything: dialogue, set-pieces, one-liners, character descriptions and action. It's sharp as hell and grips like it's hanging on for dear life. Fine brushes are used where many a writer would choose the broader option and that has the effect of ramping up the energy and pace to make it speed by. For a fairly short piece of work, it feels like you've been on one hell of a journey by the end and, should you be hooked at that point, book two is waiting for you from wherever you picked up book one.

Spot on.  

The Blurb:

“You got 24 hours to live.”

That’s all he knows. Doesn’t know the how or the why— just the when.

Ram’s a process server, a reaper, for the Death Notification Agency—the DNA—which is now the biggest government organization in the world thanks to a mysterious and highly-guarded technology that can determine the time of anyone's demise, right down to the minute.

That’s where Ram comes in. It’s his job as a reaper to deliver death notices to soon-to-be-deceased citizens 24 hours before they give up the ghost. That’s it. Nothing complex about it. He’s assigned to District 598.4A. Hollywood. Not that one. The other one, in Florida—his own sunny armpit of the world.

And life ain’t that bad for Ram. Besides a wrecked marriage and kids that barely talk to him, Ram floats through his days letting people know when their life’s about to go belly up, then heads to Nasty Nate’s Tavern in his aloha shirt for a drink. As he sees it, at least he’s giving people a chance to put their affairs in order and say goodbye to their loved ones.

It’s definitely not the most glamorous job, but hey, it’s a job. And since the DNA’s never been wrong in predicting a death, he works with the confidence of knowing he’s doing his part to help people in their final hours.

But Ram’s simple life is about to get a lot more complicated when one night…

He receives his own death notice.

The Reaper  (UK) is the first volume of six in the Death Notification Agency series.

One Man's Opinion: THE MAN WITH THE GETAWAY FACE by RICHARD STARK

 

The Man With The Getaway Face? 

It's a peach, and a perfectly ripe and juicy one at that. 

Short and pithy, laden with tension within a story that's cut to the bare bones:

New face, new heist, new partners, unwelcome developments and a series of unfortunate events. 

Sweet.  

One Man's Opinion: THE MIRACLE LIFE OF EDGAR MINT by BRADY UDALL

 

Grief's a funny thing. It seeps into your being whatever measures you put in place to try and stop it penetrating. The way I picture it, it's taken hold of my insides like ivy might consume a house. Among the centres starved of energy and choked of oxygen have been my my reading and writing parts, which has meant that two of the things I would normally turn to for solace and comfort have been cut off, thus adding to the problem. 

I've been reminded once again that it's often people who make the most difference. Friendship and compassion in all of their forms- smiles, gestures, gifts, warm words, offers of support and the like- really do make a difference. 

One such gesture that has helped me along came in the form of the arrival of a book in the post. It came from Colman Keane who is behind the excellent review site for all things crime here at Col's Criminal Library. It's a great place to find new material, in no small part due to his voracious appetite for books, TV and films, and you should check it out if you've not been there before. I trust and respect his opinions and happened across his thoughts on Edgar Mint. I mentioned that it was the kind of book that might help me out of this ditch I've been in and he sent it along.  

What I think caught my attention in that review was the mention of resilience and stoicism, both of which I felt I might benefit from at the time (and still could). And he was right about the need for those qualities. For Edgar Mint, the passage through life is not a smooth one. He's born into a world that doesn't really want him, so much so that the running over of his head by a mail truck could be construed as a blessing of sorts. 

He's taken to hospital in order to recover and there begins a pattern where he finds a way through the most adverse situations with the help of people who are drawn to him and decide to take him under their wings. 

There's no soft-soaping his journey through life. It's about as tough as anyone could cope with. Particularly brutal is his time in an institution for children who are able to inflict cruelty and pain in ways that I wouldn't have begun to imagine and hope I can forget before too long. 

It's a kind of patchwork of a novel where you move between time period and situation in a way that isn't always linear. Each strand is absorbing and the meandering always take you to a point of interest. Much of the tragedy is related in a matter-of-fact style, but there's a gentle warmth through it all and always a hope that things will get better somehow. 

The conclusion is one that took me by surprise with a twist that offers a new filter for what has gone before, but that's not for me to mention here. 

I'm glad that I stumbled into the review and I'm grateful for kindness that allowed me to read it. The slow burn was exactly what the doctor ordered. Thanks Col.

And it gets better. Having managed to build up periods of concentration spanning more than a couple of minutes, I set off reading The Man With The Getaway Face. It's the opposite of Mint- direct, pacy, tense, totally stripped back and gripping from the off- and I couldn't be more grateful to be able to focus on books once again. 

Now all I need is to find the equivalent medicine for the writing. Though I'm not sure in what form it might come, I'm going to take a leaf out of Edgar's book and just get on with it until things change.