www.list.co.uk/books Reviews Books
TARTAN NOIR VAL MCDERMID Fever of the Bone (Little, Brown) ●●●●● Staying true to gruesome form, the first murder in the Fife crime novelist’s latest slice of tartan noir could’ve been committed in 1880s Whitechapel. After the body of a young girl is found with her genitals removed, psychological profiler Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan (as seen on TV’s Wire in the Blood) embark on their sixth cold case. However, the odd couple’s efforts to solve what swiftly proves to be a serial killing spree – targeting youngsters with no apparent connection beyond being contacted online by the killer – are complicated by a new boss whose cost- cutting excludes Hill from the investigation. Meanwhile, Hill is plagued by parental issues and Jordan is torn between solving cases and advancing her career.
If the sixth book in the Hill and Jordan series is somewhat by the numbers, it’s also very readable. And the genre conventions are embellished by the ongoing development of personal relations between McDermid’s Mulder and Scully-alike protagonists. (Miles Fielder) NOIR DRAMA PETER LEONARD Trust Me (Faber) ●●●●●
Having crime-writing legend Elmore Leonard as your dad is a lot to live up to, but with this bristling second fiction outing, son Peter almost keeps up the family name. Set in Detroit, with a cast of hapless, amoral baddies, his relentlessly-paced noir caper is well
constructed for the most part, and contains some beautifully acerbic dialogue, but a clunky climax and thin character development let it down a tad. Karen plans to steal
$300,000 that is rightfully hers from an ex-boyfriend and well- connected bookie, but needless to say it doesn’t go according to plan. Cue gormless screw-ups, double and triple crosses, adrenaline-soaked shoot-outs and car chases, violent torture, snappy comebacks and an almost pathological level of plot twists. It’s enjoyable while it lasts, but some unconvincing character decisions towards the end leave a nasty taste, making it a quick burger rather than the gourmet stuff papa Leonard serves up. (Doug Johnstone)
SCI-FI COMIC JOHN WAGNER, ALAN GRANT & VARIOUS Heavy Metal Dredd (2000AD/Rebellion) ●●●●●
More from your favourite ultra hard-line future lawman in this collection of some of Judge Dredd’s most extreme stories. First printed in Rock Power and the Judge Dredd Megazine, these are stories with no limits, going for bloody slapstick comedy with a selection of the more excessive artists bringing John Wagner and Alan Grant’s scripts to life. Simon Bisley’s
exaggerated art is always visually spectacular even while drawing the most subversive of images. John Hickleton’s art is perhaps more of an acquired taste but you could never accuse him of holding back on the gory details. These are violent, over
the top tales of black comedy that could certainly do with more depth beyond the lashings of brutal carnage, but there are depraved laughs to be had and some striking pages of art work. Not one for the squeamish. (Henry Northmore)
ALSO PUBLISHED
Jack Dee Thanks for Nothing Brandishing his trademark scowl on the front cover, the star of Lead Balloon gets a few things off his frustrated chest: the way people hold their cutlery, personal trainers and the moon landings for three. Doubleday. Jo Brand Look Back in Hunger After a few fictional affairs, Jim Davidson’s least favourite female stand-up (which must be saying quite a bit) explains what made her become a comedian after a decade as a psychiatric nurse. Review.
Dara O’Briain Tickling the English This one is drolly subtitled ‘A Portrait of a People by an Irishman with Baggage’. Michael Joseph. Justin Lee Collins Good Times The bearded Bristolian ponders ‘the unfeasibly peculiar and funny moments’ that have shaped his life. We shudder to think. Ebury. Peter Kay Saturday Night Peter His first, The Sound of Language sold absolute barrowloads and there’s no reason whatsoever why this follow-up about his life on the road honing his comedic skills won’t do the same. Century.
10–24 Sep 2009 THE LIST 37
Nick Hornby explores a dark musical obsession
RELATIONSHIP DRAMA NICK HORNBY Juliet, Naked (Viking) ●●●●●
Never meet your heroes, we are told, they’re bound to be a disappointment. But what happens when you’re going for a run in a dead- end English seaside town and you bump into an ex-girlfriend who introduces you to your all-time, number one icon? You just jog on, not believing, or not wanting to believe a word of it. This is the pivotal meeting in Nick Hornby’s latest relationship drama, a
tale fuelled by bitter, failed romance and music obsession with Duncan (the jogger) meeting Annie (the ex) who has recently hooked up with reclusive US rock god Tucker Crowe who has been in hiding since 1986, never to utter a note of music or speak a word in interviews, but siring a string of kids with various mothers. The pleasure in Hornby’s sixth novel and his first adult fiction since Long Way Down in 2005, is in the slow set-up to this unlikely rendezvous. Annie is a music widow who has had to endure years of Duncan’s obsession with Crowe, yet when she posts a perceptive review of Juliet, Naked (an unplugged version of Crowe’s masterpiece Juliet) on a fan website run by Duncan, he is less than enamoured. So, how then can she inform him that Crowe has broken years of public silence to send her an approving email?
The story does peter away all-too rapidly and the true revelation behind Crowe’s mysterious disappearance from public life is sadly mundane. But amid the hand-wringing, Hornby can still deftly tease out the comedy from lives slowly falling apart and no one can ever doubt his astute pop culture sensibilities. (Brian Donaldson)
MUSIC MEMOIR JAH WOBBLE Memoirs of a Geezer: The Autobiography (Serpent’s Tail) ●●●●● Within the first paragraph of this look- back over a particularly distinctive life and musical career, John Wardle has been born in Stepney, E1. And within the first page-and-a- half, his mum has had their house exorcised (but not a ‘full-on pukka exorcism’, mind) like most people sort out ‘an insurance policy’. Behind every fact there is a story and with every
story comes another sharp comment that springs off the page the same way a good pub raconteur ambushes you with words. The story of his
pseudonym is one of the least interesting; it’s the one everyone knows, about a drunken Sid Vicious mispronouncing his real name. Yet he looks back upon early meetings with his fellow Irish- rooted Londoner John Lydon and their subsequent work in PiL, his collaborations with the likes of Can and Sinead O’Connor, time spent as a jobbing bassist in the 90s and his sometime alcohol problems with a diarist’s attention to curious detail. (David Pollock)