Skip to main content

So I've been reading

Lifeless - Mark Billingham
Mark's books have always been pretty good reads. I am having trouble deciding if Tom Thorne is the London Harry Bosch or if Harry Bosch is the Los Angeles Tom Thorne. There is precedent in Connelly's case, but I think I have enjoyed Billingham's last few more than Connelly's.

The fifth in this series covers the homeless, the first Gulf War and the darkness that lurks in the heart of all good men. The downward spiral that started at the tail end of The Burning Girl continues for our weary hero. Confined to a desk Thorne asks to go undercover to discovery who is kick London's homeless people to death.

As usual Billingham does wonderful job of communicating Thorne's despair over his current state. It is a dark world out there and it only seems to be getting darker. I don't want this to sound like a negative, but Lifeless worked better as social commentary then as a crime novel. The who-done-it, and even the why-done-it, take back seat to the societal influences that are seeds to our behavior.

I was struck by the overwhelming sadness of this book. In a greater sense the book is about how our lives can be infected before we are even born. An old man is killed. At first we feel the sadness of a lonely man losing his life. Soon we revile the old man for the suffering he has caused to a woman, her son, and his daughter. The fallout is endless. The pieces of a life that can never be reconstructed. The shattering effect of one horrific event and its ability to echo forever.

It is a heartbreaking work, and one that you should read.

Jar City is apart of the rampant Nordic Crime Fiction wave that has over taken the genre in the last 18 months. The Nordic lands also have a high incidents of suicide. I wonder if we will ever see the Tim Cockey or the Chris Grabenstien of Nordic Crime Fiction?

A dark novel is fine and I have no problem reading them. I just don't want to see the cliche of the depressing winter hinterlands of Arctic circle become the excuse for exploration after exploration of the dark caverns of the human soul.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Very Best of Mr. Dennis Lehane

I thought this post would appear in October. Ya, know when SHUTTER ISLAND: THE MOVIE was supposed to be released. And then it wasn't. Something about Leo not being able to do 'press' for the movie. Doesn't really matter the reason, a February release date has one of those fancy Hollywood meanings: Not Good. Look I'll be honest, I didn't connect with SHUTTER ISLAND. I loved the fifties setting, the haunted house atmosphere, and impending doom of the Hurricane. Even the set-up of the story was intriguing but how it played out just didn't work for me. Some interesting characters, a bunch of great set pieces, but the ending announces itself with an expected, thud that went nowhere. Am I still going to the movie? Its Lehane, Scorsese, Leo, and Ruffalo of course I am. Anyway the list. 8. Prayers for Rain - 1999 The last Kenzie-Gennaro book follows our heroes as they investigate a guy who is terrorizing women into committing suicide. The book played like an episo...
4 comments
Read more

Small Mercies - The Return of Dennis Lehane

 A time honored tradition at The Hungry Detective HQ is to perform the twice annual, and largely ceremonial, 'Dennis Lehane New book 20XX" Google search. Nothing comes up on his long abandoned Website, except notification of the script work for his television and film projects.  Grousing aside, 2022 was a big year for Mr. Lehane. BLACK BIRD, a show he created, played on Apple+ to solid acclaim. The show's star, Paul Walter Hauser, won a Golden Globe. But despite that I have yet to watch it. Not for any other reason than I am a movie person more than a TV person. The TV I do watch is watched in an arcane order that is difficult to decipher and even more baffling to explain. Short story, I need to watch ANDOR [Editor's Note: Slow going on ANDOR despite everyone telling me it is amazing.] And then BLACK BIRD, or maybe SLOW HORSES. I'll get there...  Anyway at the dead end of 2022, I did the search. Found out he wrote a book. SMALL MERCIES . I was excited to hear it. I...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Fogotten Post: A Remembrance

[Editor's Note: Started this missive, never came back to it. Still relevant, I suppose.] I am reading MURDER IN OLD BOMBAY by Nev Marsh. This was... technically still is... on my to buy pile. In the before time... the overwhelming to be read pile time... I would have bought this and thrown it on the shelf to read in the near or more likely distant future. I hope I like it enough to buy the second in the series. Buying a book is fun, buying a book that is good is better. [Editor's Note: Abandoned this book, unfinished.] BLACKTOP WASTELAND - S.A. COSBY So glad I didn't buy this last summer. Good decision to put off buying and reading what would have certainly been one of the best books of the year. New goal for the remaining 2021 calendar. Don't be dumb. Buy Mr. Cosby's follow up and read day one! [Editor's Note: I did buy a signed copy of RAZORBLADE  TEARS, meanwhile B.W. won every award, except the Edgar where it wasn't even nominated!? Also Signed firsts of...
Post a Comment
Read more