OVERKILL/ SIX NEW CRIME NOVELS
Alex Grant on the crime fiction beat
...three-quarters of the authors are hacks who lack conviction
Each month a surfeit
or plethora of new crime/mystery/suspense novels emerges. Even the most
hard-bitten aficionado of the genre will experience difficulty in avoiding
the many non-starter duds, for three-quarters of the authors are hacks
who lack conviction and plausibility.They simply churn the books out
in keeping with their contract deadlines. AND it shows that they are
merely going through the motions.
Jim Fusellis
debut novel CLOSING TIME is nothing more than a Valentine to The Big
Apple, an overdose of Noo Yawk especially its chic upscale
arty-gallery scene and the booming urban sprawl that is TriBeCa. A revenge
story that stutters along on an almost empty tank of narrative fuel
Fusellis limitations are severe mainly a lachrymose attitude
to the vagaries of fortune and an indulgence of colourful
characters whom you have met ofttimes.
Boston Terans
hectic and hallucinatory psycho-thriller NEVER COUNT OUT THE DEAD is
an exemplar of Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,
Terans saga of a "tweaker" [speed-freak] Mom Dee and
her horribly abused daughter Shay spans a twelve year period after the
bungled murder of a lawman. The writer being imitated is James Ellroy
whose perfervid pulp prose alternates between a staccato,take-no-prisoners
river of the Unconscious, mostly devoted to Thanatos, the Death Wish,
and lurid re-enactments of post WW2 actual events. Terans prose
style overcooks the hallucinogenic and is most definitely the most purplish
style since Ellroys. At least choose to copy the best,huh?
Black distaff author Kris Nelscotts two books A DANGEROUS ROAD
and SMOKE-FILLED ROOMS are devoted to the good deeds of black P.I. Smokey
Dalton (a.k.a. Billy Taylor) his primary task being the protection of
his adopted son Jimmy who has had the bad luck to see the
face of the real;assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. Set at the
height of thr Civil Rights Era Nelscotts novels are similar to
those of black female writer Paula I. Woods, in that they may be attempting
a reconciliation of Americas two principal peoples, but they lack
the rigour and the inspiration to prove more than journeyman works.
Michael McGarritys sixth "Kevin Kerney thriller UNDER
THE COLOUR OF LAW is the Real McCoy a straight-arrow paranoid
conspiracy saga set in New Mexico where the erstwhile poltically savvy
Kerney is investigating the savage murder of a U.S. Ambassadors
young,faithless wife, and the savage murder of an activist anti-establishment
priest a former army officer determined to unearth the truth about his
brothers death in Central America during the era of death-squads
and the "Contras". UNDER THE COLOR OF LAW is an utterly straightforward
and entirely gripping old-fashioned yarn.Newly appointe dthe Santa Fe
police chief Kerney has to bring up to snuff a ramshackle staff and
to foil the diabolical schemes of maverick FBI agents.
James Swains
GRIFT SENSE introduces us to reluctant Florida retiree Tony Valentine
an expert sleuth at tracking down the men and women who scam casinos,
by examining surveillance tapes minutely Valentine discovers that his
nemesis Sonny Fontana long thought to be dead is back in town ripping
off the fourth-rate Acropolis gambling palace.
A wannabe comic farce akin to those written so well by Pete Hautman
[THE MORTAL NUTS] and by Carl Hiaasen [SKINTIGHT] Swains largely
unfunny a smirk here and there a chuckle every fifty pages
GRIFT SENSE gets bogged down in the scummy details of low-lives at the
bottom of the Las Vegas food-chain . Not an inherently charming
or winning crew, each and every one a caricature taken from other novels
of this subgenre. Enough already! After 70 pages of sketchy shenanigans
© Alex Grant - master of the abrupt ending
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