books
review
I CONTEMPORARY THRILLER
Solibo Magnificent
Patrick Chamoiseau (Granta £6.99) at * ‘k ‘k *
Solibo is the last of the great
storytellers, but one carnival night —
3 when everyone is high on alcohol and
memories — he seems to choke on his
words. Did he die of natural causes or
was he murdered?
Martinican Patrick ChamOiseau is the
James Joyce of the Caribbean, squeezing every last possibility out of
every word. His great novel Texaco —
which was awarded the Prix Goncourt
— told the stOry of the shanty towns
that grew up after the abolition of
slavery.
Solibo Magnificent is a slighter affair, but brilliantly uses the form of a police procedural thriller to illustrate the life ; and death battle between the languages of French and Creole in the Antilles. There are heroes and villains, much drink is taken and, above all, there is bureaucracy and violence (they often amount to the same thing). In the end this is far more than a whodunnit; what matters is who said it and why. (MI)
7 SHORT STORY COLLECTION ' My Date With Satan
Stacey Richter (Scribner £6.99) *****
Stacey Richter’s debut is a fantastically peculiar and prickly collection of weird Americana, original and inventive enough to confound your expectations at every hairpin turn.
In 'The Beauty Treatment', the life of a vacuous mall girl is altered when her best friend slashes her face. The protagonist of ’An Island Of Boyfriends' is shipwrecked in a locale populated solely by Neanderthal ' hunks. So far, so gimmicky; but then the canine tragedy ’Sally’s Story’ breaks your heart, and the hallucmogenic 'Prom Night' scares the hell out of you, and you still don’t have a handle on Richter’s unique style.
Lacerating Wit and cool pop culture
references are balanced by profound ‘ sensitivity and fiery intelligence. Call her David Lynch directing Beverly Hills 90270. Or Bret Easton Ellis With a heart. Or a three-headed hybrid of T Sylvia Plath, Raymond Carver and Ruby Wax. Or just get straight to the mm and call her a genius. (HM)
CRIME FICTION Shame The Devil
George P. Pelecanos (Gollancz £16.99 ? hardback; £9.99 paperback) ***
George P. Pelecanos — ’the coolest writer in America' (c/o GO) — makes the switch from Serpent's Tail to Gollancz with a novel that doesn't mark a new beginning but acts as the culmination-
of all he has written before.
Shame The Devil and its cast fall neatly into his ’Washington DC’ series (King Suckerman, The Sweet Forever and, unpublished in the UK, The Big Slowdown), but it also substantially involves Nick Stefanos, the bartender/Pl who starred in Pelecanos' first three
books
The draWing together of disparate characters is thematically strong as almost every character suffers loss and pain, only to find redemption in friendship. Pelecanos believes in these people, despite the sooal disgrace that is Washington DC and the fact that they’re caught up in murder.
However, it's only after meandering around the character set-up that the book's final third flies, albeit Without the take-off power of Pelecanos' earlier
work. (AM)
POLITICAL THRILLER Saving Faith
' David Baldacci (Simon & Schuster
£9.99) at i i *
DAVID BALDA I)
In the lobbies of the White House, the CIA and the FBI are playing cat and mouse over who gets most money from Congress and the Senate.
Congressmen are being bribed over
past indiscretions and when political lobbyist Faith Lockhart is ambushed at a clandestine meeting With the FBI, her
. life becomes the key to the future of 1 both organisations as she goes on the
run With private investigator, Lee Adams.
BaldaCCl has gone to great lengths to ensure the basic truth of his fiction; so much so that it makes a strong case
. against the American political system.
But he does not always take the veracity of his settings or intelligence of his plot into the thriller element. The bad guy is as inadequately equipped with motivation as any on the X-Files
and the characterisation is as Simplistic
as Gillian Anderson's. But despite this, and a flacod ending, it's a damn fine
political yarn. (TD)
FOOTBALL THRILLER Own Goals PhilAndrews (Flame £6.99) *Ihk
Steve Strong, Phil Andrews's first person narrator in this pacy little thriller, uses Raymond Chandler as a role model in his new career as a private eye. Andrews, too, borrows
from the master, even to the extent of
Continued over page
STAR RATINGS * i i i t Outstanding *‘ki' * Recommended * t it Worth a try * * So-so * Poor
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