Archive for the ‘Noir’ Category

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami doesn’t lend himself to easy categorization. Though his prose is spare, almost styleless, it’s more supple than muscular, and though his stories are often occupied with mundane domesticities, they’re also often founded in the surreal. It’s no surprise, then, that Murakami’s long-awaited latest, 1Q84, isn’t easy to shelf –it’s at home among either fantasy, thriller or hard-boiled noir – but one thing’s for sure: this book is grotesquely Murakami. That is, quiet domesticity punctuates adventures tenuously connected to reality, and yet for all its faults – and some have argued there are many – this is a book that haunts you long after you’re done, a book that, like a jealous lover, won’t let you move on.

December 31, 2011 · Judi Clark · One Comment
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: Contemporary, Literary, Noir, Speculative (Beyond Reality), World Literature

THE CONSUMMATA by Mickey Spillaine and Max Allan Collins

THE CONSUMMATA finds Morgan the Raider on the run in Miami’s Little Havana and being chased by “federal suits” teamed with “local fuzz” who think he has 40 million dollars in stolen funds. With no place to hide, the chase seems to be coming to its inevitable conclusion, but suddenly Morgan finds himself snatched and hidden from the feds by some of Little Havana’s Cuban community.

October 9, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Florida, Noir, Thriller/Spy/Caper

CHOKE HOLD by Christa Faust

CHOKE HOLD is novelist and former peep show girl Faust’s second title for Hard Case Crime, and it’s a sequel to MONEY SHOT. Faust is Hard Case Crime’s first female novelist, and if you think that means a tender, sensitive look at crime, then think again. Faust’s protagonist is tough former porn star, Angel Dare, a woman who feels more comfortable giving a blowjob than extending a sympathy hug. In Money Shot, Angel, owner of an adult modeling agency came out of retirement for one last gig. Big mistake. The job is a set-up by some particularly nasty gangsters who are hunting for a briefcase full of cash. Angel, who’s raped, beaten and stuffed in the trunk of a car, finds herself on the wrong side of a prostitution ring.

October 9, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Life Choices, Noir, Thriller/Spy/Caper, US Southwest

THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Danish Detective Carl Morck is a walking tormented shell of his former self. Recently returned to work, he is living with post-traumatic stress disorder following an incident that ended with the shooting death of one of his colleagues and a shot that paralyzed his friend, Detective Hardy. Morck was also injured by a shot to the head. So far the perpetrators have not been found and Morck lives with survivor’s guilt. He is difficult to get along with, often late to work, and no longer has his heart in his work.

September 10, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Denmark, Drift-of-Life, Noir, Sleuths Series

THE BAYOU TRILOGY by Daniel Woodrell

WINTER’S BONE was one of the best crime films I saw in 2010. I discovered that it was based on the novel by Daniel Woodrell, and I was surprised that I’d never heard that name before. But I’m apparently not the only one, and the success of WINTER’S BONE is guaranteed to bring this author new readers. Woodrell is best known as a writer of Ozark Noir, but the Bayou Trilogy is, as the title suggests, set in a different geographical region. The trilogy is composed of three novels from Woodrell’s early writing career: UNDER THE BRIGHT LIGHTS, MUSCLE FOR THE WING and THE ONES YOU DO. The protagonist of the trilogy is Cajun cop Rene Shade. Shade hails from the fictional Louisiana city of San Bruno: “a city of many neighborhoods, Frogtown and Pan Fry being the largest and most fabled, and great numbing stretches of anonymous, bland, and nearly affluent subdivisions.”

April 28, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Award Winning Author, Mystery/Suspense, Noir, Sleuths Series, Small Town, US South

WHAT YOU SEE IN THE DARK by Manuel Munoz

What do you see in the dark? Well, that partly depends on your perspective. In Munoz’s stylistic mise-en-scène novel, the second-person point of view frames the watchful eye and disguises the wary teller. Reading this story is like peering through Hitchcock’s lens—the camera as observer’s tool and observer as camera–with light and shadow and space concentrated and dispersed frame by frame, sentence by sentence.

March 28, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Award Winning Author, California, Class - Race - Gender, Mystery/Suspense, Noir, Whiting