As I revealed in a short I put up on Saturday, I’m not a big fan of the number that comes after 12. We’re skipping am issue of the Plain Dealer this week as a result, and skipping straight to 14.
As well as the books noted below, watched the new Ted Danson Netflix show ‘A Man on the Inside’ this week and enjoyed it enormously. I went in expecting a cosy, comic mystery and got something a bit more. Definitely recommended.
Cheerio!
Books I’ve Read This Week
Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill
‘Apartment 16’ is a chillingly effective horror novel about weird goings on centring on a London apartment building. Apryl, a young American woman has come to London to sort out the affairs of her great aunt, a resident of the building who has died. Meanwhile, Seth is a young man with a troubled past who works as a security guard there. The interweaving narrative sees the two investigate the increasingly strange events at the block and delve into its dark history.
Like all the Adam Nevill books I’ve read, there’s a deep creepiness here. He is particularly good at describing the unusual, giving you just enough to get your mind working overtime to fill in the details.
The book is maybe a tad longer than it needed to be, but that’s a small criticism of an otherwise excellent horror story. It’s tense, compelling and darkly enjoyable.
LA Noire: The Collected Stories
This collection of short stories inspired by the video game LA Noire is an unexpected gem. The stories are punchy, pulpy, crime shorts from some great writers, including Lawrence Block, Andrew Vachss and Joe R Lansdale. For me the highlights were Joyce Carol Oates’ excellent tale of a friendship between Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Short (the victim of the Black Dahlia murder) and Francine Prose’s wonderful story of an acting class that teaches movie actors who to be convincing murderers.
Neil Simon’s Murder by Death by HRF Keating
I haven’t seen the movie this is based on (one of those high concept, star studded 70s comedies) and suspect if I had I might have enjoyed this more. The premise is fun – a reclusive millionaire who hates detectives invites a bunch of them to his mansion to solve a murder – and there were some individually funny lines, but it largely failed to entertain me. I suspect it worked better on screen, with the various stars hamming it up, but as a book it was probably always doomed to failure.
The Gunsmith 319: Out of the Past by JR Roberts
The Gunsmith is one of those massively long running western series that combines old school cowboy action with a little smut. It’s been running since 1982 and is still going, with over 500 entries if you count the two spin off series Gunsmith Giant and Lady Gunsmith. This is the first one I’ve read and it was decently enjoyable. Hero Clint Adams gets approached by a teenage girl claiming she’s his daughter. Her mother, a woman from Adams’ past, has been murdered, and naturally he saddles up and goes to investigate. There isn’t a tonne of action (of either kind) but it was still a fast paced and entertaining read. Nothing to write home about, but a fun way to spend a couple of hours.
CriminOlly 