Ugh, my life has not had nearly enough novel-reading in it recently - once I get really busy with the semester, I do not have the attention to spare to ensure the right pipeline of light reading...
I did pick up a few crime novels the other week, in one of those moods where somehow (implausibly) nothing unread in my apartment seems at all appealing and I feel that the pristine bookshelves of the local chain bookstore must hold something more magical for me. So: Laura Lippman's Life Sentences, which I enjoyed quite a bit but which was rather cast into the shade by Richard Price's truly extraordinary Lush Life (I think the book's only significant flaw is that you could not really say it shows much of a sense of humor).
Well worth reading, though it is also not exactly funny (unless you have a very gruesome sense of humor), is Dave Zeltserman's Small Crimes - I thought it was really excellent - sort of Jim Thompson by way of Charlie Williams - I like these first-person novels, noir on a very modest and sly and insinuating scale - highly recommended.
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I seem to be the lone contrarian on Small Crimes. I found it needlessly complexified, but the heart of the problem was the narrative voice, which I didn't find appealing or, more importantly, convincing.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I loved Lush Life.