Reviews: Last Deep Breath, Tom Piccirilli and The Readbreast, Jo Nesbo

I’ve been off the blog for a while. Events got in the way. I moved from the Isle of Man to England. I also bought a smart phone. The smart phone means I can go on Twitter, Facebook, Internet, check email and play chess without using my PC. One thing you can’t do easily is type large amounts of text. The other factor is my Kindle. I spent a lot of time over the last couple of months editing Salazar and Salazar 2. I did this on the Kindle, only using the PC to type up my changes from the Kindle. Not being at the PC so much has meant less opportunity to type up a casual blog post. I haven’t been reading so much either. Most of my reading time has been spent reading and editing my own stuff. Salazar is now back with the publisher. Salazar 2 is still being edited but it’s not so urgent – I’ll read a novel or two along the way. Or not… I have a few books on the go but none of them are novels. I started reading Dig Ten Graves, by Heath Lowrence. This is a collection of short stories. To mix it up a bit I also started reading The Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles, by Edward A. Grainger. These two are being complemented by a biography: Stephane Grappelli: A Life in Jazz, by Paul Balmer. I like Grappelli and I wanted to read something set in the Paris Jazz scene for Salazar 3.

The Last Deep Breath, Tom Piccirilli

I read this a while a go. It’s a novella rather than a novel. It’s also an easy read which draws you in quickly. This made it feel a lot shorter than it really was. I felt like I got picked up half-way along some dusty road and didn’t really know what was going on until we hit LA. By that time the intent came through. The lead character had led a pretty fucked up life. Trying to redeem something or perhaps out of some new-found loyalty, or baser instincts Grey (the lead character) is on the trial of his foster-sister – or adopted sister, I’m not certain which. He gets there eventually, uncovering the seedier side of life along the way. The ending is neat – Taxi driver neat.

It’s a nice shot of Noir, and if that’s your thing too, go and download a copy.
Tom Piccirilli is on Twitter as @TomPiccirilli, I am on Twitter too as @SethALynch

Last Deep Breath, Tom Piccirilli
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 181 KB
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Macabre Ink Digital; First Digital Edition edition (5 Jan 2011)

The Redbreast, Jo Nesbo

Jo Nesbo, the man who spawned an entire industry in The Next Stieg Larrson stickers. Rather unfair – like sticking The Next Bristol City on the gates of Old Trafford. Jo Nesbo is the writer Stieg Larrson showed signs of becoming by the end of his trilogy.

This book is the third in the Harry Hole series. The pervious two are not available in English yet. I don’t mind coming into a series at a this stage. Harry has history. Most of it stems from those previous two books. I never felt that I was missing something significant by starting here. What you get instead of the introductions are fully developed characters going about there work.

I don’t like to go into plot details in these reviews, I don’t want to spoil anything and half-the time I can’t remember enough of the plot to comment. I prefer to comment on the feel, the idea, and maybe scenes. These are the things which stick in my mind. Characters too but if the characters are undeveloped or unbelievable I probably won’t bother finishing the book. The first thing I liked about this book was its underlying subject – Nazis. I don’t have a thing about Nazis and am more interested in World War one than the sequel. I am interested in history and the way its twisted and perverted by time. The Norwegians, like the French, pretend that they fought bravely against the Nazi occupation. There were a few traitors but they were all shot on liberation. This book makes one fact clear: a lot of Norwegians fought for the Nazis. These people felt they were as loyal to their country as any other patriot. To them the real danger was the U.S.S.R. So why do the Nazi’s interest me? partly because they are on the horizon for Salazar. He’s now in Paris in 1931 with every intention of staying. He is a war veteran, and Englishman, and now a pacifist. I’m looking forward to him facing the Nazi occupation. Will he fight, will he run back to England, or will he do what some similar minded people do and join the Nazi’s? I don’t think I could bring myself to write about him if he did but in the end, if I feel that’s what he would have done then he’ll do it.

Enough about Salazar and me. This bit is about Jo Nesbo. I enjoyed the Redbreast. I like Harry Hole. It’s a reasonably long book which is engaging enough to sustain itself. There’s a Wikipedia page on Hole if you want to know about his character etc. I liked him. He’s a bit of a Martin Beck on a bad day. When I finished reading it I had to resist downloading the next one straight away. I have got at least fifty books queued up to read. I won’t read them all before I get to the next in the Hole series but I will read the third Martin Beck and the second Wallander first. I will finish those short story collections. Then I have The Good Thief’s Guide to Vegas and Venice to read. Then the next Nesbo. I’ll try to blog about them along the wall.

The Redbreast, Jo Nesbo
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 748 KB
Print Length: 656 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0099546779
Publisher: Vintage Digital (1 April 2010)

Links to these writer’s websites are on the left under writers.