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Review Date: 7/12/2012
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"Not a mystery, but a crime story, and one of Innes' very best. There is less of the learned comments of the professor and more of character and story and humor. Colonel Petticate, when his wife dies suddenly on their boat, decides to say she is abroad, and continue her series of best selling romance novels. In taking his first step into crime, he sets out on a path which will bring him one horrible shock after another. Although he is an unpleasant little man, he is not so unpleasant that you can't identify with him, at the same time feeling he deserves everything he gets. The book includes a fascinating vignette of Oxford upper-class bohemianism which Innes must have drawn from life. Not a page lags, vivid characters appear throughout. Five stars."
Review Date: 6/3/2012
"BEWARE. The books are magnificent, but the cassettes are---shock horror--abridged! And even worse, they are not described as such. Only by looking at the actual cassettes in your hands will you learn this rather important piece of information. Beware!"
Review Date: 6/3/2012
"A sea story/thriller of the best kind...well written, and original. The ending is extraordinary, and especially interesting as showing a great knowledge of sailing, which even the land-locked can enjoy."
Review Date: 6/3/2012
"Like all the McGee books, this is a well-written adventure story. Warning: he tends to include some very unpleasant villains, whose doings I would rather not have had to read about. The author was also of his generation, that is to say, a considerable sexist. So be warned."
Review Date: 5/2/2013
"I have read Loving and Party Going but not Living. As John Updike says in his introduction to the former book, Green in incomparable in bringing a feeling of real life to his novels. Loving is set during World War I in an Irish country house where the owner is away at the front and his wife is left behind with the servants. Party Going concerns a few people in a fog bound London on a particular night when travel is brought to a standstill due to the weather. Highly recommended to the sensitive reader of literature."
Review Date: 6/3/2012
"I first read this when I was 18, was shocked at how much the "hero" hated so many people with, I thought, so little reason. As I got older I learned that some people just have a low threshold for irritation. The writing is brilliant, original and stunning. Amis scrutinizes his surroundings with a ferocity which reveals local color which no other novelist seems to even notice. His language is succinct, and quite devastating in its savagery.
The book contains some famously hilarious scenes, such as the description of a morning after, and the scene where his hero delivers a lecture drunk. But my favorite is the one where he takes a bus to the train station in hopes of seeing the girl he wants before she leaves town, and every imaginable delay drives him to distraction.
Note: To compare this book to Jane Austen is laughably wide of the mark, Nor is it "dry British humor.""
The book contains some famously hilarious scenes, such as the description of a morning after, and the scene where his hero delivers a lecture drunk. But my favorite is the one where he takes a bus to the train station in hopes of seeing the girl he wants before she leaves town, and every imaginable delay drives him to distraction.
Note: To compare this book to Jane Austen is laughably wide of the mark, Nor is it "dry British humor.""
Review Date: 11/25/2012
"This was the first Leonard novel I read and it delighted me. Leonard is famous for his dialogue, which feels real, and often he can be very funny. I was particularly impressed with his grace in depicting sex and violence, which occur in moderate doses in his books. His characters tend to be criminals, some of them very scummy types, but he does not rub your face in gore and cruelty. Has a great ability to depict sort of red-neck hillbilly types with affection but without illusion. Good portrayal of cops as well."
Review Date: 6/3/2012
"Mr. Stephen is a very respected Dublin lawyer at the top of his profession. Suddenly a snake in the grass appears in his life--a blackmailer who is capable of ruining his reputation by telling about a small but legally problematic slip-up Mr Stephen has made.
The author writes elegantly and insightfully about his characters, with a subdued sense of humor and compassion. All his novels are very much recommended. Few write nowadays with such intelligence and wit, not to mention literary grace. The book has a different title in English and American editions, which is why I ended up with 2 copies. (The other title is The Minister for Justice.)"
The author writes elegantly and insightfully about his characters, with a subdued sense of humor and compassion. All his novels are very much recommended. Few write nowadays with such intelligence and wit, not to mention literary grace. The book has a different title in English and American editions, which is why I ended up with 2 copies. (The other title is The Minister for Justice.)"
Review Date: 7/15/2012
"Must have for any Christie fan; contains exhaustive information about all her books and the movies made from them, also articles by various crime writers on various aspects of her amazingly successful creations."
Review Date: 6/24/2012
"This is Sharpe's first book. The story is certainly a riot, about South African police under apartheid dealing with an old English family who to put it mildly, are eccentric. It begins when the venerable and terrifying matriarch of the family calls the police station to report that she has murdered her Zulu cook--not a big deal in itself. However, she also reports that she has been having an affair with him and that puts a different complexion--no pun intended--on the matter. Soon an army of police is assaulting the family's mansion and being decimated by an elephant gun--the same one which despatched the cook. Events go out of control early and progress from one absurdity to another even greater. The incompetence and downright idiocy of the police, combined with the old guard philosophy of the English sahibs, make for infinite misunderstanding and disaster.
Unfortunately, the writing is no more than competent, lacking the subtlety which would bring this comic novel to the level of the S.A. novels of James McClure, master at this genre."
Unfortunately, the writing is no more than competent, lacking the subtlety which would bring this comic novel to the level of the S.A. novels of James McClure, master at this genre."
Review Date: 7/15/2012
"This is a fascinating and extremely frank account of an older woman's adventures with men that she meets after putting an advertisement in the New York Review of Books. She had stated that she was looking for sex and she found it, and much more."
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