Review: William Boyd’s Solo in the Washington Post

Since my teenage years, I’ve been an avid James Bond fan—following both the novels and the films—and while the big-screen Bond may have gotten most of the attention in recent years, I’ve been equally intrigued with the last three books officially sanctioned by the Fleming estate, each featuring a different author: Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks, Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver, and now Solo by William Boyd. That last one strikes me as the boldest of the three in a number of ways, and I was pleased to review it for the Washington Post. Here’s a quick excerpt:

To some degree, a Bond book is a Bond book. M, Q Branch, Miss Moneypenny, some fast cars, some fast women, a little globe-trotting, a little fate of the world in the balance — then shake, don’t stir. But as with the various shifts in the Bond franchise, small changes can make big differences. Boyd’s Bond reveals himself to be reflective, at times even rueful, moved to fresh depths of moral awareness by thoughts of his past and observations about conflict and cruelty as his mission unfolds.

The full review can be found here. — Art Taylor

Review: Lillian & Dash by Sam Toperoff

Dashiell Hammett has figured frequently as a character in other writers’ fictions, often with a swift plot and a sharp dose of mystery and intrigue. But Sam Toperoff’s new novel Lillian & Dash takes a different approach to the iconic author and his long-time lover, playwright Lillian Hellman. Check out my review here. — Art Taylor

Catching Up On My Reading….

Over the last week or so, I’ve been catching up on recent issues of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, taking some time to check out short stories by several friends—each of them a writer I admire tremendously. Just wanted to give a quick shout-out to those stories and to what stood out to me about each:

Harley Mazuk‘s “The Road Les Traveled” (EQMM‘s August 2013 issue) is another of the author’s Frank Swiver stories, about a PI in 1940s San Francisco. This one centers around a burlesque theater, a blacklisted screenwriter, and his wife—trouble with a capital T. While the plot is great fun, what I enjoyed most was Mazuk’s playfulness with details and language. When that troubled wife puts one some records and does a little shake and shimmy to lure Swiver into bed, he resists at first—and then comes a nice touch: “When Bessie Smith sang ‘Do Your Duty,’ I took Mrs. St. George to bed.” Later, during a fight scene, comes another like bit of language play: “He swung the other arm at me like a leg of mutton, and he caught me on the chops.” And cleverness too in the quantity and variety of alcohol that permeates the story as well—definitely put to good use!

In the latest EQMM, the September/October issue (on newsstands now), a trio of friends and fine writers have really delivered the goods:

• In Dana Cameron‘s taut, tense “Dialing In,” a government-mandated assassination attempt goes badly wrong, leaving the shooter with lots of questions and some new missions of her own to carry through.
• In David Dean‘s “In a Dark Manner,” a confession of teenage misdeeds takes some surprising turns—with just a hint of light peeking through the darkness.
• And Brendan DuBois‘ “Breaking the Box” follows the ups and downs of a high-stakes police interrogation—and then, in a bit of brilliant sleight-of-hand, takes a very unexpected turn.

These tales reveal once more why these writers have long since been considered among the genre’s finest practitioners of the short story. Plenty more I’m still looking forward to reading in that issue as well, with stories by Doug Allyn, Jon L. Breen, and Ed Gorman and Ricky Sprague, among others—and so proud to be a part of it myself.

Beyond EQMM, I’ve also been sampling a few more of Cornell Woolrich‘s tales from the new Centipede Press collection Speak to Me of Death, but I have to admit that I think I’m going to give up on pushing through the rest of the book. While stories like “From Dusk to Dawn” and “Marihuana” (the last couple I read) offer those surprise endings that seem to be the hallmark of so much of Woolrich’s work—satisfying endings, I should stress, often with a cruel twist—the prose itself strikes me as so overwritten, both stylistically and in terms of sheer quantity, that it’s often tough going. And too often the characters act less like real people than like symbols for an idea or theme or like cogs in a plot, slowly turning and turning relentlessly in the same direction because that’s what the machinery needs. Historical interest there, of course, but there are simply other, better things for me to be reading right now…. — Art Taylor

Review: Harlan Coben’s Six Years in the Washington Post

As I write in my Washington Post review of the new novel Six Years, Harlan Coben has long since established himself as the master of a certain kind of tale: the story of “a life suddenly unraveling, the past summoned back into a swiftly shifting present, secrets peeling back to reveal more secrets.” In this novel, college professor Jake Fisher seems to have the chance to reconnect with a lost love—if only he could prove that she actually exists! This latest outing displays clockwork precision in that regard, and while some aspects of the book defy reality, the overall effect is still both mesmerizing and surprisingly affecting. See my full review here. — Art Taylor

Review: Emily Winslow’s “The Start of Everything” in the Washington Post

An American author living in Cambridge, England, Emily Winslow has now published two mysteries set in her new home. The latest, The Start of Everything, follows five narrators to piece together a complex tale centered on the corpse of a young woman found caught in a fen sluice gate. Here’s the start of my review in today’s Washington Post:

Fr. Ronald Knox, a founding member of Britain’s famed Detection Club, concluded his 1929 “Decalogue” for detective fiction with this rule: “Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.”

Despite being set in Cambridge and then in an English manor house, Emily Winslow’s second novel, The Start of Everything, is far removed from the Golden Age of British mysteries, but with the persistent doubling that dominates this intricately plotted tale, I could hardly help thinking about Knox’s rules. People are frequently mistaken for others. Pairs of objects play central roles (watches and sweaters, specifically). While no actual twins appear, the novel features two sets of brothers, and in one case the likeness between them provides both a poignant, unsettling scene of impersonation and a legacy of tension and trouble.

Read the full review here. — Art Taylor