On the Grind - Review

ON THE GRIND is the 8th book in the Shane Scully series and the first I have read. It was lean, mean, and pretty gritty. My slavish devotion to series fiction means that long running ones are never read because the amount of time it takes to get caught up to the current book is enough to dissuade me from reading it all. The obvious downside to this policy is that many a good book goes unread.

ON THE GRIND has a hell of an opener. Scully is in disgrace. Fired and left to work as a cop in the most corrupt department in LA county. I don't think I am spoiling anything but just in case it is probably best to excuse yourself from the rest of this post.

I bought this set up just long enough for the story to work on me. Having not read the previous books and having no attachments to any of these characters, it was all entirely possible. However, I quickly caught on to the ruse. I liked that Mr. Cannell was challenging my notions of the 'heroic' cop right off the bat. Secondarily, Mr. Cannell had provided his character with an event that showed rather than told readers about Shane Scully's dedication to what is right, and just.

What didn't work for me was the rather flimsy depiction of the villains. The bent cops are motivated by greed and greed alone. It would have been nice to see a bit more nuanced look at crooked cops, ala The Shield. Now granted that the cops on The Shield are more to the good than the cops in On The Grind, but one wonders how these guys got there. Some amount of time should have been spent fleshing out this aspect of their character development.

In the end this become a minor point for me in what is an otherwise excellent book. The action was brisk and exciting without becoming implausible. Shane is a finely drawn character, so if you are looking to get on board with this series or are just looking for a good read I can definitely point you in the direction of ON THE GRIND.

Bonus: If you head on over to the Stephen Cannell website there is a sweepstakes.

Spring Fling Preview 2009

Gasp... is that the sun. Sweet excelsior of life, here to wash the putrescence of winter off my skin. Okay, so the The Hungry Detective is very happy to welcome Spring. My diatribe aside I generally love the winter, but right around the second or third week of February Winter becomes a heavy burden crushing my soul.

A plethora of Crime Fiction will appear in the coming months. Let's not waste a moment longer.

The Long Fall - Walter Mosley (March 24)
With the Easy Rawlins books in Mr. Mosley's rearview mirror... I give that 5 years... Mr Mosley switches his focus from LA to NYC. Mr. Mosley is one of the reasons I read crime fiction. However, my real concern is that most of Mr. Mosley's non Easy Rawlins work has left me cold.

The Dark Volume - GW Dahlquist (March 24)
Huh. Sometimes a book makes this list because of a jacket cover or interesting title. In this case the first book in the series was titled, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters. It is even fun to type, The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters. Probably more fantasy than crime fiction, but still sounds intriguing.

Shadow and Light - Jonathan Rabb (March 31)
Germany. Between the wars. I am a sucker for Historical Crime Fiction. This one is set in the monolithic German film production company UFA. You may not be excited but The Hungry Detective is.

Devil's Garden - Ace Atkins (April 2)
Ace continues his recent run of fact based fictions. This time he turns his intoxicating prose to the infamous Roscoe Arbuckle case. Ace has been one of my favorites for several years.

Paolos Verdes Blues - John Shannon (April 7)
Here is one of the unsung LA based series. I dug around looking to pick up a book but the first in the series proved difficult to obtain. Maybe I'll just start here.

Fifty Grand - Adrian McKinty (April 28)
Cuba. It evokes a lot of images.... mostly those from The Godfather Part II. If he writes Cuba half as well as he does Mexican prisons this should be just fine. I am really looking forward to this book. This is a day of release purchase. Read everything this guy has written. NOW!

The Language of Bees - Laurie King -(April 28)
Continuation of the highly enjoyable Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes series. I'll admit to being a couple books behind. The last read was Justice Hall. Save for one or two, these books always delivery.

Dust and Shadows - Lyndsay Faye (April 28)
Dr. John Watson and Jack the Ripper. Yep! I know this story has been covered in fiction before. There is a film, Murder by Decree, that is based on a similar premise. I may not buy this book, but I will definitely read it at the library.

Sunnyside - Glen David Gold - (May 5)
One of the great books of my life is this author's first book, Carter Beats the Devil. I dream about making that book into the film The images are so clear to me. This is my most anticipated, non-crime fiction, book of the Spring.

The Secret Speech - Tom Rob Smith (May 19)
People fell all over themselves heaping praise on Child 44. Had I not expected the second coming I might have enjoyed it a bit more. That, an ignorance of it main source inspiration. Anyway, I am still looking forward to the new book.

The Scarecrow - Michael Connelly (May26)
While I think The Last Coyote is Mr. Connelly's masterpiece, my favorite book of his is The Poet. The Scarecrow marks the return of reporter Jack McEvoy. McEvoy was the hero of The Poet, and other than Bosch, is my favorite Michael Connelly creation. McEvoy has made a few cameos but THD is glad to see him have his own book.

The Criminal Next Door - Troy Cook (June)
Here is an author that I worry is a secret genius. One of these day's he is going to write a book that sells a billion copies and I will regret not buying his previous work... well that and not reading him sooner.

And still there are a bunch of books coming from many well known authors. Nevada Barr, Giles Blunt, Harlan Coban, Brian Freeman, Hakan Nessar, Greg Rucka, Michael Robotham, John Sandford, John Hart, George Pelecanos.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Trailer

The Foreign Desk at The Hungry Detective has alerted me that the massively acclaimed THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was recently been adapted for the screen in its home country of Sweden. In fact, the second in the series, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE is already in post-production with the third book in the trilogy filming for a a December 2009 release.

Check out... the un-subtitled... trailer and cross your fingers that this gets a bigger US push than JAR CITY did a year ago. More information on all three films can be found at the Production company website.

Curse of the Spellmans - Review

So imagine... don't worry it's just an expression... my surprise when I sat down to read Lisa Lutz's second book, the Edgar nominated CURSE OF THE SPELLMANS. Surprised mainly because I found the first book to be okay, but nothing special. Certainly not special enough to pick up the second book so quickly.

Unfortunately, I pushed through the first hundred pages having many of the same problems I did the first time around. If I had to distill it down to one comment it would have to be forced whimsy. Every character is an odd ball. Every situation provokes a contrived bit of comedy or melodrama. Every bit of dialogue is written as a one prolonged punchline to a joke that has worn out its welcome. Yikes!

But then the whole book changed for me, and I loved almost every single page of it. It is the oddest reversal of fortune a book has had for me in quite sometime. One thing that helped to right the ship in this case was the more focused character study. THE SPELLMAN FILES suffered from to0 many cooks. The non-conformist parents, the straight laced older brother. The screwed-up uncle, the partner in crime best friend, the litany of ex-boyfriends, plus what felt like a dozen more zany inhabitants. In CURSE OF THE SPELLMANS the focus is down to just three characters. Isabel, our hero, her younger sister Rae, and Rae's best friend, 40 year old cop Henry Stone. The rest of the characters are where supporting characters should be... in the background. It is addition by subtraction. Yes, all of those wacky characters are here too, but the story is not shanghaied by their presence.

The success of the book was also dependent on the modulation of my own expectations. The Spellman books are not likely to be intricate crime stories. The narratives will never be strong in that regard. I don't me to damn the book far from it. It is just not the point. Ms. Lutz's strength lies in her ability to write fallible characters that a reader can identify and commiserate with, while also placing them into slightly ridiculous situations where laughter... or at least a warm chuckle... is mandatory. The 'funny' is front and center here, and as long as you know that I think CURSE OF THE SPELLMANS makes for a very enjoyable read.

The third book in this the Spellman series, REVENGE OF THE SPELLMANS, will be released March 10.

The Clean Up - Review

An Amazon purchase I made the other day was Sean Doolittle's latest SAFER. Mr. Doolittle is a guy who never fails to disappoint. His first book DIRT contains so much insight into human frailty... mainly my own set of human frailties... that I find the book to be a bit spooky. THE CLEAN UP is his fourth book and one that, like most things, I have been wanting to read for a good long while.

Matt Worth is a cop, and a screw up. He comes from a long line cops, none of them screw ups. Matt is serving his time at a Grocery store for taking a poke at a Homicide Detective, who is sleeping with his ex-wife. But he finds it oddly fulfilling bagging groceries and chit-chatting with Gwen, the checker. Gwen has problems, like a boyfriend who beats her. Matt is protective, so when Gwen shows up at work, catatonic one night bruised head to toe, Matt knows its all gone Pete Tong. A cursory review of Gwen's apartment reveals Gwen's fella got a taste of his own medicine and is dead. Funny thing is the boyfriend was also a mule for the local drug kingpin. And by the way there is money missing. A lot of money.

Suffice to say the book is dark. Violence is surprising and brutal. But THE CLEAN UP is also pretty hilarious in several passages. Two Narco cops are playing both sides of the fence. Their back and forth banter is relaxed in the way people mingle everyday conversations with the terrible things in their lives.

THE CLEAN UP is almost all story. There is very little sitting around to smell the roses. The psyche of the character Matt is for the most part pleasingly unexplored. Yeah, he comes from a long line of cops. Yeah, his one brother was killed in the line of duty. Yeah, his other brother is an ex-con. Yeah, the cop he took a poke at is engaged to his ex and now they are expecting a baby. Yeah, he is protecting a woman he barely knows. But all of this doesn't really mattered. Decisions are made in the split second and rarely do we even as people in the real world dwell on the particular situation. It is an uncluttered narrative where our lead character displays a stunning lack of internal turmoil about the things he has seen and the things he has done.

From the stand point of reading it was refreshing to see something that was not interrupted at every turn by the protagonist weighing his options about how this action or that decision would effect the outcome of his/her mortal soul. I don't mean this to be faint praise about THE CLEAN UP, just the opposite in fact. Mr. Doolittle trusts his reader to fill in the gaps. We may not know what goes into a body dump, but we all know what it means to face tough and at times gut wrenching decisions.

I'm going to call it right now and write The Clean Up sets the standard for all other books I will read this year. Phenomenal. He is the best author you are not reading.