Truth is, every hopeless film addict has a story like comedian/actor Patton Oswalt shares in SILVER SCREEN FIEND. The difference is we’re not famous, so who wants to hear it?

Okay, okay, so Oswalt’s knack for making an anecdote as compelling as it comedic may have something to do with it, too.

Because of this, anyone who has experienced the near-orgasmic, adrenaline rush (don’t deny it) of a movie projector flickering to life as the lights fade away — along with your disbelief — will find themselves in lockstep with a kindred spirit …

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George Pelecanos is among the finest contemporary crime authors working today. With 19 novels to his credit, including both series and stand-alone titles, Pelecanos has progressively blurred the line between genre and mainstream fiction.
 
THE MARTINI SHOT, his latest work, is his first collection of short fiction, gathered mostly from crime fiction anthologies from as early as 2002. It’s an unfortunately uneven reading experience that only occasionally shows the compassion and insight we’ve come to expect from Pelecanos.

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I have never been much of a John Gardner fan. His takeover of the James Bond novels pretty much ended my interest in that character. And since I’m rather a Sherlockian purist, I’m not overly fond of his three novels that focus on Holmes’ arch-enemy, Professor Moriarty. THE REVENGE OF MORIARTY, originally published in 1975 as the second book in that series has now been re-issued by Pegasus Crime in a “celebratory hardcover edition.”

Gardner’s writing is unsophisticated, almost amateurish which may sound heretical about someone who wrote more than fifty novels, many of them best sellers. There’s no charm or beauty to his style, except for an occasional flourish where he seems to be trying for something special, only for it to fall flat among all the other undistinguished sentences. It seems like he’s trying too hard.

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Marie Brennan’s A NATURAL HISTORY OF DRAGONS: A MEMOIR BY LADY TRENT attempts an interesting conceit: to be written in the style of early twentieth century nature adventures. In those days, these naturalist colonialists would visit some remote part of the world and share their thoughts on the area’s wildlife, both human and non.

(Examples abound, but this gives me the opportunity to recommend Gordon MacCreagh’s WHITE WATERS AND BLACK, a raucous romp through the Amazon that will cure you of ever wanting to go on an adventure.)

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“I write on many subjects,” says author Christopher Fowler in the acknowledgement of his latest novel, “but keep coming back to Bryant & May because they are ridiculously good fun to write.”
 
That’s very encouraging assurance for long-time fans of Fowler’s unique and consistently entertaining Peculiar Crime Unit series, and also why we have BRYANT & MAY AND THE BLEEDING HEART, the 11th entry of the series. Like previous titles, this new mystery combines supernatural elements with some outrageous crimes, and uses the often arcane history of London, its home setting, as its basis – and is most highly recommended.

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Straight up, Charles Todd’s HUNTING SHADOWS, the sixteenth entry in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series, is an excellent addition to the oeuvre, and if you love police procedurals set in Britain in the Interwar period, then you must have this (and all the other books) on your shelf. Unfortunately, this title has a flaw that can be found in other Todd books, unnecessary complication and about fifty pages too long.

For those who’ve never read a Rutledge, he’s a Scotland Yard inspector who solves crimes in and around the timeframe of the Nineteen Twenties. He is haunted by his wartime experiences, both figuratively and literally. Rutledge was forced to shoot a soldier during the war for failing to obey an order.

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The premise of David Rosenfelt’s AIRTIGHT at first left me a little uncomfortable, but the author, better known for his dog-centered series featuring lawyer Andy Carpenter, manages to make it all work in this intriguing one-off.

New Jersey cop Lucas Somers is investigating the death of Judge Daniel Brennan, a man nominated to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Brennan was stabbed horrifically 37 times. Did it have anything to do with his current cases? The cops get an anonymous tip (uh oh) that one Steven Gallagher, a man about to be sentenced for serious drug crimes, may have been the culprit.

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SNOWPIERCER 1: THE ESCAPE shares the premise and some ideas with the recent film of the same name, but in details, execution and resolution it differs significantly. Whether you liked the film or not should make no difference to your appreciation of the book, originally published in 1984.

The story is set in a future where earth has essentially frozen solid, except for an enormously long luxury train circling the earth on its tracks, filled beyond capacity by the haves and the have-nots. The book follows one of the have-nots as he travels or is pushed through the train towards the almost mythical engine, dubbed Saint Loco by the inhabitants.

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In her 1959 novel THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, author Shirley Jackson brought a group of strangers together for an extended stay at a supposedly haunted house to have them experience the house, especially at night, and report their individual findings. Now British author Phil Rickman, creator of the popular Merrily Watkins series, repeats the premise – only this time for a reality TV show in his new stand-alone novel, NIGHT AFTER NIGHT.

This contemporary spin is surprisingly effective. But Rickman’s latest is a challenging and often frustrating reading experience due to its reach constantly extending its it grasp.

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After reading the inside flap of the dust jacket of Henning Mankell’s A TREACHEROUS PARADISE, I was prepped for yet another tedious mainstream historical novel on race relations and the horrors of colonialism, and sure enough, that’s what I got. Thankfully, because Mankell can write, and he is beautifully enabled here with a pristinely clear translation by Laurie Thompson, the book isn’t one turgid cliché after another.

Instead, it’s a touching and very human (and humanizing at least for the protagonist) extended character study of a young and naïve Swedish woman, one Hanna Renström. In the early 1900s, Hanna is sent away from her family to make her way in the world, finds herself on board a ship, marries one of the sailors, watches her new husband die, and ends up in Lourenço Marques in what was then Portuguese East Africa, and in what is now known as Maputo in Mozambique.

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