January Magazine: best crime fiction, 2008, part II

One title from January Magazine's list of the best crime fiction of 2008, part II:

Trigger City by Sean Chercover (Morrow) 304 pages

“Facts are not truth. Listen carefully. This is important.” These are the first words to come from private eye Ray Dudgeon since he finished his first adventure, in Sean Chercover’s debut novel, Big City, Bad Blood (2007). In Trigger City, Ray’s still smarting as a result of his clash with The Outfit, losing his girlfriend and being tortured. Business isn’t going well, either. So when the late Joan Richmond’s father offers all the money Ray needs for exclusive use of his services, Ray can’t say no. There’s no question about who killed Joan Richmond; a former coworker rang her doorbell, shot her in the face, then went home and committed suicide to The Best of Abba. But things get hairy when Ray’s usual allies, Chicago police Lieutenant Mike Angelo and reporter Terry Green, are scared away from this case. Things become even more bizarre when Ray finds himself caught between two government organizations straight out of a Duane Swierczynski novel. Chercover achieved amazing results with a stock premise in Big City. He does even better with Trigger City, writing more tightly and never letting up on the pace. A pale copy of his first novel would have been an achievement in and of itself. Chercover goes far beyond that with his sophomore work, telling a good story better than most writes could do. -- Jim Winter

Read about every title to make the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

January Magazine: best crime fiction, 2008, part I

One title from January Magazine's list of the best crime fiction of 2008, part I:

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere by John McFetridge (Harcourt) 304 pages

Set in Toronto, John McFetridge’s sophomore offering (after Dirty Sweet) features an ensemble cast from both sides of the law, most of them spokes radiating out from Sharon, a single mother operating a low-level dope-growing operation. Gangs of Italians, South Asians and Angels, all grafting for a heavier slice of Toronto’s new prosperity; a Native American cop and his recently widowed partner investigating an apparent suicide while sitting on the powder keg of an internal affairs probe about to blow the Toronto force apart; Ray, a new face on the scene with an offer Sharon can’t refuse; Richard, the old flame now a power broker in the world of Canadian crime. A multi-character narrative, this story unfolds with a brevity, fluidity and power that is reminiscent of Elmore Leonard’s writing, in that it’s almost an abbreviation of style. One of its chief delights, however, is that McFetridge appears to be working on a more epic scale -- Toronto is here a microcosm of the contemporary world, where criminality is leading the charge towards globalization and leaving the local law-enforcement officers dazed with the speed and force of the onslaught. It’s also a tremendously fun read, the whole imbued with a deadpan wit, particularly in the sections where the supposedly dumb-ass criminals use the jargon of business executives to discuss their trade. Swaggeringly self-assured, it reads like the work of a master in mid-career; that it’s only McFetridge’s second novel only adds to the satisfaction. -- Declan Burke

Read about the other titles on the list.

The Page 69 Test: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

--Marshal Zeringue

Critic's Chart: books on six American dramatists

Dominic Maxwell, stage editor and chief comedy critic for the Times (London), named a critic's chart on American dramatists.

One title on the list:

Getting to Know Him Hugh Fordin

The definitive biography of Oscar Hammerstein, the lyricist and playwright who, with Richard Rodgers, transformed musicals.

Read about all six books on Maxwell's chart.

--Marshal Zeringue

Best nonfiction, 2008: January Magazine

From January Magazine's compilation of the best nonfiction of 2008:

True Crime: An American Anthology edited by Harold Schechter (Library of America) 788 pages

The serial-killer porn and Mafiosi tell-alls that swamp today’s non-fiction crime shelves rarely light my fire, but I’m a sucker for more ambitious fare such as True Crime, edited by Harold Schechter. And for once the generic title is appropriate. The tell, though, is in the subtitle. Because in this ambitious collection, Schechter presents a very convincing argument that crime is about as American as apple pie, with a boffo selection of red, white and blue mayhem from a star-studded list of contributors, both contemporary and historical -- everyone from Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin to Dominick Dunne and Ann Rule. The book also contains narratives of murder and violence that stretch from homicidal pilgrims at Plymouth to the Menendez brothers of Southern California. There’s an excerpt from Herbert Asbury’s Gangs of New York, Mark Twain takes a few swipes at the myths of the “Wild West” and James Ellroy, in his unsettling “My Mother’s Killer,” lets slip his well-worn Mad Dog of Crime persona just enough to reveal a surprising glimpse of Sick Puppy. Cotton Mather, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Damon Runyon, Jim Thompson and Ambrose Bierce also chip in, and the newspaper and magazine articles, journal excerpts and public documents they and others are responsible for make this almost 800-page tome an unforgettable reading experience. It’s one hell of a reference source and a bruising and bloody social history of the United States. Hell, there’s even a collection of lyrics here from several murder ballads, so you can hum along. Nervously, perhaps, while you wonder if you remembered to lock the side door. -- Kevin Burton Smith

Read about all of the titles in the feature.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five Best: Secret agents featured in series

Jeffrey T. Richelson, author of A Century of Spies and Defusing Armageddon: Inside NEST, America's Secret Nuclear Bomb Squad, named a five best list of books for the Wall Street Journal. His subject: secret agents featured in series.

Number One on the list:

Murderers' Row
by Donald Hamilton
Fawcett, 1962

In the 27 paperbacks by Donald Hamilton featuring Matt Helm -- published between 1960 and 1993 -- there is an echo of Raymond Chandler, as when Helm says a character has "the smooth rich tan you get by working at that and not much else." But Helm is not paid to solve murders; he is paid to commit them -- as a professional assassin for a classified U.S. government agency. That puts Helm's work firmly in the realm of the fanciful, but other elements are rooted in the real world of Cold War intelligence activities. In "Murderers' Row" a key element is detecting enemy submarines. Helm's chief orders him to find a missing scientist who designed an aerial submarine-tracking system and either bring him back, secrets intact, or kill him. In a refreshing alternative to TV and movie heroes who worry more about "fair play" than completing their missions, Helm takes the no-nonsense approach: When he subdues a villain, there is no tying him up and hoping for the best; Helm dispatches the poor fellow with a single bullet.

Read about all five titles on Richelson's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Peace's Literary Top 10

David Peace is the author of GB84 and the Red Riding Quartet, which features the years Nineteen Seventy Four, Nineteen Seventy Seven, Nineteen Eighty, and Nineteen Eighty Three. His most recent books are The Damned Utd and Tokyo Year Zero, the first of a trilogy set in Tokyo in the aftermath of World War II.

From his Literary Top 10 at Pulp.Net:

My favourite novel that no one else seems to have heard of:

Dogura Magura (1935) by Yumeno Kyusaku

Read more of David Peace's Literary Top 10.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 books of 2008: Time Out Chicago

One of the titles that appeared on Time Out Chicago's top ten books of 2008 list:

Doctor Olaf van Schuler’s Brain, by Kirsten Menger-Anderson. Algonquin, $22.95.

The scope of Menger-Anderson’s debut story collection, combined with her intellectual curiosity when it comes to archaic medical procedures, is dizzying. Yet her prose is equally rich, which still has us baffled as to how she pulled it all off.

Read an excerpt from Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain, and learn more about the author and her work at Kirsten Menger-Anderson's website and the "Regarding Dr. Olaf" blog.

The Page 69 Test: Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain.

Read about the other nine titles on Time Out Chicago's list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Books of the year: fiction

The Week tabulated the "best book" end-of-year choices of critics for The Atlantic Monthly, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Denver Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, New York, The New York Times, the Denver Rocky Mountain News, Salon.com, Time, The Village Voice, and The Washington Post.

Number One on the list:

2666
by Roberto Bolaño
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30)

“Reviewing Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 is like reviewing the ocean,” said Adam Mansbach in The Boston Globe. Split into five loosely connected parts that range in tone from “romantic farce” to the literary equivalent of a black hole, this is a novel of “devastating power” written by an artist as cannily indirect as “the great post-bop jazz drummers.” Bolaño, who died at age 50 in 2003, set most of the action in a Mexican border town. But it’s not until a chilling catalogue of unsolved rape and crime unfolds in the long fourth section that readers can see that he’s been circling an evil so grand in scale that it seems to challenge any belief in life’s meaning. The lingering question this new masterpiece raises, said the editors of Salon.com, is whether humanity’s worst acts are “redeemed or ameliorated to the slightest degree by our most sublime achievements.”
A caveat: People shouldn’t use the term “masterpiece,” said The New Yorker, for a novel that doesn’t cohere.

Read about the other books on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Critic's Chart: top Christmas reading

Margaret Reynolds, a broadcaster and academic who reviews classics for the (London) Times, named her top Christmas reading for the paper.

Number One on the chart:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Jane “cleans down” the house and makes mince pies, though St John disapproves of “household joys”.

Read about all six titles on Reynolds' list.

The Page 99 Test: Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.

Jane Eyre also made the Guardian's top 10 list of "outsider books," a top ten list of romantic fiction, and a top 25 list of boarding school books.

--Marshal Zeringue

Amazon's top ten of 2008: mystery & thrillers

One title to make the Amazon top ten mystery & thrillers of 2008 list:

Meg Gardiner's The Dirty Secrets Club

Read about all ten titles to make the Amazon editors' list.

Read an excerpt from The Dirty Secrets Club, and learn more about the author and her work at Meg Gardiner's website and blog.

Meg Gardiner has practiced law and taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Originally from Southern California, she now lives with her family in London.

The Page 69 Test: The Dirty Secrets Club.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five best books on Christmas traditions

The Boston Sunday Globe called Penne L. Restad's Christmas in America: A History "a fine book of far greater than merely seasonal interest."

At the Wall Street Journal Restad named five books that "display a gift for exploring Christmas traditions."

One title on her list:

The Battle for Christmas
by Stephen Nissenbaum
Knopf, 1996

"The Battle for Christmas" explains how a rowdy public holiday -- one with lots of drinking, eating, mocking, begging and loud merry-making -- was tamed into a quiet family affair in the 19th century. Unsettled by the urban concentration of the lower classes during the Industrial Revolution, upper-class folks encouraged the celebration of a civilizing version of the holiday. Traditional year-end roistering gave way to rituals of gifts and good cheer. The promoters of the new Christmas offered a cleaned-up version of St. Nicholas (his religious cloak removed and censorious coal taken away), placed a candy-trimmed evergreen in the parlor and gathered the children 'round. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in history, "The Battle for Christmas" isn't about traditions; it's about the social tensions that newfound traditions helped resolve, if only for a few days each year.

Read about all five titles on Restad's five best list.

--Marshal Zeringue

Top 10 Texas books of 2008

Glenn Dromgoole of the Abilene Reporter-News named his top ten Texas books of 2008.

One title to make the list:

Texas Wildlife Portraits by Greg Lasley

A retired Austin police officer and consummate wildlife photographer, Greg Lasley has produced a stunning coffee table book, featuring close-up portraits of snakes, owls, cardinals, bats, spiders, hummingbirds, beetles, caracas, turkeys, alligators, ducks, prairie chickens, armadillos, coyotes and jackrabbits, to mention just a few.

Read about the other nine titles on Dromgoole's list.

--Marshal Zeringue