Mini Reviews; Crime Edition

Posted January 13, 2016 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Crime, Thriller / 14 Comments

I do not know if it is the fact that I have had some big months recently or that I associate violence with the holiday period but I have felt the need to read crime fiction lately. I think after a recent review of Dexter is Dead, I have been searching from a new crime series, and hopefully I will find one soon. As crime novels are hard to review without spoilers I thought I will combine them into a mini-review.

Title: Vanishing Games (Goodreads)
Author: Roger Hobbs
Series: Ghostman #2
Published: Knopf Doubleday, 2015
Pages: 304
Genres: Thriller
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Jack the Ghostman is backed, this time his mentor, Angela needs his help. After a heist to steal some uncut sapphires worth millions of dollars goes wrong, Angela finds herself in trouble. An unknown crime organisation seems to be after her and she is stuck in Macau without any help. She turned to her protégé in the hope to get back the sapphires and get out alive.

I remember Ghostman to be a fun, fast paced heist novel so when book two, Vanishing Games was released, I knew I would eventually read it. What worked really well in the book was the setting; Macau becomes this mysterious city full of uncertainty. A sovereign state of China, Macau is one of the richest countries in the world, thanks to housing the largest gambling district. A tourist attraction for high rollers, but still housing a seedy underbelly. I had a lot of fun with this book, it was fun and action packed, but still a typical heist novel which is not a bad thing

Title: In the Woods (Goodreads)
Author: Tana French
Series: Dublin Murder Squad #1
Narrator: John McCormack
Published: Viking, 2007
Pages: 429
Genres: Crime
My Copy: Audiobook

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

I have been recommended the Dublin Murder Squad by Tana French multiple times, not sure why. So I finally decided to pick up the first book In the Woods, which tells the story of Detective Rob Ryan and Detective Cassie Maddox assigned to the murder of a twelve year old girl. More than twenty years ago Ryan and two friends got lost in the same woods. He returned, but what happened to his friends remains a mystery.

This was a fresh and dark psychological suspense, which I enjoyed far more than I expected. My problem with best-seller crime novels is they tend to be very formulaic and unoriginal. Tana French managed to keep the same format but still made the book stand out. I think the chemistry between Ryan and Maddox played a big part of this. I was shipping the two and hoping they will end up together. I hear this series follows different characters in the Dublin murder squad which I am worried about, I want more from these two characters.

Title: Villain (Goodreads)
Author: Shūichi Yoshida
Translator: Philip Gabriel
Published: Vintage, 2011
Pages: 295
Genres: Crime
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

One morning in January 2006, the body of a female insurance saleswoman, Yoshino was found dead on Mitsue Pass. A young construction worker, Yuichi is arrested for her murder. Shifting perspectives, Villain tells the story of the events leading up to Yoshino’s murder and the aftermaths.

Kosaku Yoshida is often considered as one of Japan’s best crime writers and as a fan of Japanese Lit, I knew I had to check one of his books out. However I was a little disappointed; the story was interesting but I was not a fan of the execution. I thought it builds up the suspense, then shifts perspective; which felt like it kept stopping and starting and that just felt too clunky. Yoshida explores the idea of alienation, which seems to be a common theme in Japanese fiction. This worked well, however this was not enough to redeem the novel for me.

Title: Hit Man (Goodreads)
Author: Lawrence Block
Series: Keller #1
Published: Harper Collins, 2002
Pages: 342
Genres: Thriller
My Copy: eBook

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Lawrence Block is a hard working pulp crime novelist, best known for his hard-boiled detective Matthew Scudder, gentleman thief Bernie Rhodenbarr and hit man John Keller. Hit Man is the first book in the Keller series, combining a collection of short stories to develop this character. This is an interesting technique and Block’s short story book One Night Stands and Lost Weekends remains one of my favourite crime collections. He manages to pack the same punch of a normal pulp novel into a stripped down story.

I enjoy Lawrence Block’s style; it is nice to know someone is trying to keep the pulp crime genre alive. However Hit Man is more of a thriller series, which develops the complexities of this character with short intervals for an assassination. I like the way the stories interlock as a way to introduce John Keller, I have never seen this technique and think it worked well. Having said that, I think this is a fun book but I am not sure if I will continue the series. I am looking for something darker and do not think the Keller series will give me what I desire.

Ghostman by Roger Hobbs

Posted April 20, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Thriller / 0 Comments

Title: Ghostman (Goodreads)
Series: Ghostman #1
, 2012
Pages: 336
Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

When a casino heist goes bad, there are a lot of loose ends to tidy up. Loose ends like a million dollars and only 48 hours to find it. The Ghostman is sent into find the money and make sure the crime isn’t connected back to his employer. Only problem is he is in the Wolf’s territory now and he wants the Ghostman’s head in a bag; if they can find him.

First of all, this is a pretty stereotypical heist novel, with all the normal thriller elements that you expect, the double crosses, the cops, the clearly laid out plan, it is all there in this book. So why did I enjoy this book more than I should have? The Ghostman, let’s just call him Jack Delton as that is the name he uses the most in the novel, is nothing really special. There isn’t much character development; he continues to remain an enigma the entire time. Yet there is something about him that I liked; he has the ability to hide in plain sight, to blend in and he is pretty much a grifter sent in to clean up the mess. He is also a pretentious book worm; he admits to reading a lot in the book and has a soft spot for Homer and epic Greek poetry. These elements of his character, and the fact he knows how to handle himself when things get rough, really come together to make a character I enjoyed reading about.

All other characters in the book were completely underdeveloped and just felt like backdrops that got in the way of Jack Delton’s tasks. But then again, you do need conflict and twists and turns to drive a story like this; there was nothing too shocking about the plot, I would have loved a good twist or maybe a darker narrative but all in all, Ghostman was a lot of fun to read.

This is Roger Hobbs’s debut novel and he is only 24 years old which makes you wonder; where did he learn all the skills to pull off a casino heist and cover it up? The detail put into the different ways of doing things was incredibly detailed, so much so that you can’t help but think this is the voice of experience. My main problem was that I felt like sometimes the author was dumbing down the information too much; I think he wanted to make sure every reader knew what was happening but the information felt over done.

Delton spends all this time tying up all the loose ends from the heist, that at times I thought things were going to end up incredibly neat and, to an extent, it did, but I was glad to see not everything goes to plan. I thought maybe Delton had a complex plan to get himself out of mess but instead he decided to live by the motto “Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo” If I cannot move Heaven, I will raise Hell. Simple but effective, but then again that’s the book in a nutshell.

I still don’t have no idea what really made this book so enjoyable; there really isn’t much in the novel that was special, it all felt like it was done before. In the end I was just sucked into the story and enjoyed the ride; it is a good heist novel and I think it will give most thriller writers a run for their money. Sure it was predictable and nonsensical but sometimes you just need some light entertaining junk to read. It is still worth checking out, even if it is just to see what Roger Hobb can do and then spend some time trying to work out how he researched this book.

Author: Roger Hobbs