El Dorado Drive Wins the LA Book Prize in Mystery-Thriller

 

                                                                Congrats, Megan

FFB: THE FOG, James Herbert

 

reviewed by Ed Gorman, the author of TICKET TO RIDE, THE MIDNIGHT ROOM and many other fine books. 

 

The Fog, James Herbert

Just after Stephen King created the horror industry back in the Seventies U.S. publishers began importing British writers who walked the same streets as the master. One of those was Brit superstar James Herbert. While he never quite found the audience he deserved over here, a number of his novels have stayed with me long after the more successful imports have faded completely from my memory.

My favorite Herbert is titled The Fog and it continues the long and heralded tradition of the British disaster novel. Sometimes the disaster is an alien invasion as with H.G. Wells and sometimes the disaster is unworldly seeming yet of our world as with the great John Wyndham.

In Herbert's novel a yellow fog begins moving across England causing much of the population to go insane and begin committing atrocities on family, friends and anyone else they can get their hands on. Even animals go insane; pets become killers. A group of scientists in a bunker race to learn why one of them is immune to the effects fog.

What raises this story to the level of a classic is not just the shock effects--Herbert can jolt the most jaded of readers--but the portraits he draws of his people. He cuts across all ages and all classes. Unlike most Big Bestsellers he makes us care about them and in so doing he gives the reader the race-against-the-clock story with the scientists and the anxiety of seeing real people face their fates.

Centipede Press has just issued a collector's edition of the novel complete with a beautiful cover homage to the U.S. paperback edition and a long, fine introduction by horror legend Ramsey Campbell.

Thought it's a lengthy novel, I read this new edition in two sittings. It's a thriller that truly belongs on the same shelf as H.G. Wells, the early catastrophe novels of J.G. Ballard and the classic work of the late John Wyndham.

A Private View, Douglas Stuart (The New Yorker)

 Although I did not read SHUGGIE BAIN, Stuart's breakout novel of a few years ago, it was widely reviewed and celebrated. This is a story of gay man going through an art exhibit with his mother.  He and his mother are from Glasgow but the museum is in New York where he now lives with his lover, a curator of the museum. Although his life has been difficult because of his mother's alcoholism, he is extremely forgiving and fond of her and trying hard to give her the good time she would want to have. This was a sad if lovely story. 

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Kevin Tipple 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 MIROIRS NO 3 left a lot for the viewer to fill in but I liked it a lot. Enough to go back and rewatch his earlier film BARBARA. My poor neighborhood theater keeps trying to show foreign films but since there are no good ways to advertise, there were only four of us.

Went to a lecture on Immigration at my senior center, which was terrifying. As an immigrant you have many right but ICE doesn't give a damn.

Saw a fabulous production of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF with my son and family for his birthday. We had dinner at a new Greek restaurant, THE BLUE GOAT.

Watching the Harry Hole series, THE PITT, HACKS. I will certainly miss THE PITT. 

Reading a kindly book, THE ROAD TO TENDER HEARTS, Anne Hartnett.

Broke my garbage disposal but things like that get fixed in a rental. But then the guy broke the connection to the dishwasher 

RAIN, RAIN, RAIN

Going to see & JULlIET today.  

What about you?  

FFB: The Long-Legged FLy, James Sallis

 

The Long-Legged Fly is the debut novel by James Sallis, featuring Black private detective Lew Griffin in New Orleans. It was followed by several more novels, all having an insect in the title. (And many other novels like DRIVE that did not)

It follows Griffin as he searches for missing persons across four different time periods (1964, 1970, 1984, 1990), with the cases serving as a backdrop to explore his own struggles with alcoholism, loneliness, and a troubled past. The book is praised for its lyrical, blues-like prose and its focus on character over traditional plot, making it more a story about a detective than a standard mystery. 

 There are similarities between this series and Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlings books, which are set in L.A. 

Sallis died not long ago. Before his death, he published an anthology of his many fine short stories. 

Short Story Wednesday; Agatha Christie's Short Story Collection (Kerrie Smith from the archives

 

Forgotten Story Collections: Agatha Christie

This post is a contribution to Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books. This week the focus is on forgotten short story collections.

Many people who read Agatha Christie novels ignore the fact that she wrote some terrific short stories.
In my quest to read the works of Agatha Christie (novels and short stories) in the order in which they were written, I have identified 21 short story collections. So far I've read 82 short stories in this particular reading challenge.

Agatha Christie used many of the short stories to introduce, and develop the character of, a person who would later feature in novels.

Most of the short stories appeared in magazine format and then were later collected for publication.

This was certainly the case of Miss Marple who first appeared The Thirteen Problems- publ. 1932.

The first of these short stories was The Tuesday Night Club - Sir Henry Clithering, until recently Commissioner of Scotland Yard, tells a tale about tinned lobster that caused a fatal case of food poisoning. It was first published in December 1927. Miss Marple appeared in her first full length novel THE MURDER AT THE VICARAGE in 1930.

While Hercule Poirot first appeared in THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES in 1920, by 1924 Agatha Christie had written (and mostly published separately) 11 short stories that elaborated his character and his abilities with the "little grey cells" that were then published as Poirot Investigates.

On the other hand some characters appear only in short stories, such as Mr Parker Pyne (Parker Pyne Investigates publ.1934), and Mr. Harley Quin (The Mysterious Mr Quin publ. 1930).

If you'd like to follow up on Agatha Christie short stories, then check my latest update post.
I am about to read the next The Listerdale Mystery

If you'd like to find out more about the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge and the accompanying monthly blog carnival check here.

George Kelley

Kevin Tipple