88 replies to this topic

[Ryan H.]

I've been hearing good things about THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH by Ariel S. Winter, which is a novel in three sections, each one styled after a different crime author (Georges Simenon, Raymond Chandler, and Jim Thompson). It seems almost too ambitious to succeed, but the reviews I've seen are full of praise. To make things even better, the publisher, Hard Case Crime, has provided the novel with a delightfully pulpy cover.

[NBooth]

Ryan H., on 13 August 2012 - 10:43 PM, said:

I've been hearing good things about THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH by Ariel S. Winter, which is a novel in three sections, each one styled after a different crime author (Georges Simenon, Raymond Chandler, and Jim Thompson). It seems almost too ambitious to succeed, but the reviews I've seen are full of praise. To make things even better, the publisher, Hard Case Crime, has provided the novel with a delightfully pulpy cover.

I've heard good things, too. It's on my list, and has been since I read a review of it (unfortunately, I can't remember where) about a year ago.

[NBooth]

Bumping this thread to give a shout-out to Michael Dirda's excellent On Conan Doyle; or, The Whole Art of Storytelling. The book's a scant 210 pages long--easily readable in an afternoon--but it's a marvelous appreciation of Doyle's fiction (not just the Holmes stories) and of Doyle as a person. I laughed several times while reading; it's a warm-hearted, convivial book well worth checking out.

Edit: some excerpts that key in, I think, to the essentially Romantic nature of the Holmes stories:

Quote

The Sherlock Holmes stories are never just murder mysteries, they are moral fictions. Down Baker Street and every mean byway of London a man boldly goes who is neither tarnished nor afraid, though he wears an Inverness cape rather than Philip Marlowe's trench coat. Holmes, for all his eccentricities and neurotic tics, will never bow to cant, will always do what he believes to be right, and will faithfully ride to the rescue of the suffering and desperate. (22)

Quote

To Sir Arthur Conan Doyle what matters most in literature isn't aesthetic perfection: What counts is that books be thrilling lessons in heroism, sacrifice, and virtuous action. (84)

And one more, on a different topic:

Quote

As a potential English major, I was naturally enrolled in an array of literature classes, for which I produced essays and term papers based on the close-reading techniques of the New Criticism. Not that these techniques seemed particularly new to me. Weren't they merely Holmes's usual modus operandi applied to poems and stories? One simply needed to pay close attention to the words and look carefully at anything particularly odd or distinctive. "Singularity," as the Master often observed, "is almost invariably a clue." Holmes's success, as he told Watson more than once, lay in "the observance of trifles." I soon realized that Sherlock Holmes "read" a person or crime in the way a critic such as William Empson read poetry. (102)

I've seen Holmes compared to psychoanalysts more than once, but this may be the first time I've seen him aligned with literary critics outside my own fevered brain.

Edited by NBooth, 18 December 2012 - 02:52 PM.

[NBooth]

Ok, so this is really good news: Mysterious Press is about to unload a whole bunch of Ellery Queen novels--and one short story collection--on Feb. 5. Titles below:

Ten Days' Wonder (basis for the Chabrol film of the same name)

The Chinese Orange Mystery

The Adventures of Ellery Queen (short stories)

Cat of Many Tails

And on the Eighth Day

The American Gun Mystery

The Egyptian Cross Mystery

The Dutch Shoe Mystery (N.B. the first Queen novel I ever read, myself.)

The French Powder Mystery

The Siamese Twin Mystery

The Greek Coffin Mystery

The Spanish Cape Mystery

The [nation] [noun] Mystery books are all early Queen, as are the stories collected in The Adventures. I've not read all of them, but I would be inclined to push Chinese Orange and Dutch Shoe and recommend a miss for French Powder. Cat of Many Tails is a serial killer book after the manner of Christie's ABC Murders rather than Silence of the Lambs (which, of course, it predates). And on the Eighth Day is weird--more parable than mystery story--but good.

If nothing else, I recommend The Adventures. More than anything else I read when I was first starting on Queen, those were the stories that made me a fan.

Edited by NBooth, 21 January 2013 - 07:14 PM.

[Jason Panella]

I'm little bit short on time this morning, otherwise I'd scan through the first few pages of this thread to check. BUT...has anyone read any of Georges Simenon's Maigret novels? I'm watching the 1990s BBC adaptations (with Michael Gambon as the titular detective), and I'm really enjoying the tone and pace. I'm hoping the books are the same way.

[NBooth]

Jason Panella, on 23 January 2013 - 07:20 AM, said:

I'm little bit short on time this morning, otherwise I'd scan through the first few pages of this thread to check. BUT...has anyone read any of Georges Simenon's Maigret novels? I'm watching the 1990s BBC adaptations (with Michael Gambon as the titular detective), and I'm really enjoying the tone and pace. I'm hoping the books are the same way.

I've got one or two stacked somewhere, but they're waiting to be read. I've heard good things--it's a daunting series, though, since Simenon was insanely prolific.

Fun fact: Charles Laughton played Maigret in the 1949 movie The Man on the Eiffel Tower:

Edited by NBooth, 23 January 2013 - 08:01 AM.

[Tyler]

NBooth, on 21 January 2013 - 07:07 PM, said:

Ok, so this is really good news: Mysterious Press is about to unload a whole bunch of Ellery Queen novels--and one short story collection--on Feb. 5.

So, my niece was born yesterday, and her first name is Ellery. My brother has heard of Ellery Queen, but he said they didn't pick the name because of him.

[NBooth]

Tyler, on 02 February 2013 - 09:21 AM, said:

NBooth, on 21 January 2013 - 07:07 PM, said:

Ok, so this is really good news: Mysterious Press is about to unload a whole bunch of Ellery Queen novels--and one short story collection--on Feb. 5.

So, my niece was born yesterday, and her first name is Ellery. My brother has heard of Ellery Queen, but he said they didn't pick the name because of him.

Congratulations!

[NBooth]

Not to keep forcing my obsessions on this thread, but Open Road Books has a video on Ellery Queen up to promote the new e-book editions:

Edited by NBooth, 05 February 2013 - 09:05 PM.