I've read quite a few Maigret's now, but this is my favourite so far. As a detective, Maigret is the opposite of Columbo. There's never "just one more thing here". In fact, there's rarely any questioning at all.
By his very presence, Maigret seems to invite confessions, for the 'villains' to bottle everything up in fear of interrogation only for themselves to let everything out. It's a tour de force of sustained suspense to keep a novel at that bubbling point, and the plot here is intricate and tragic; essentially, a man who has worked his way up to have everything but through egoism and happenstance can't find the right people to share it with.
And even more tragic, he finds himself harking back to those simpler times, undoing his status. There's much to relate to here, and the prose is knife-edge sharp.
'The father of contemporary European detective fiction' Ann Cleeves Cars drove past along with the trucks and trams, but by now Maigret had realised that they were not important. Whatever roared by like this along the road was not part of the landscape. ... What really counted was the lock, the hooting of the tugs, the stone crusher, the barges and the cranes, the two pilots' bars and especially the tall house where he could make out Ducrau's red chair framed by a window.
Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been…
I've seen Hitchcock's film of this book about three times over the years, so was familiar with the central concept and wary of reading the source material in case the film coloured the reading; however, this wasn't the case.
The film veers in a different direction midway through and, in doing so, fails to capture the depth of moral ambiguity and coercion contained here. Highsmith dissects the relationships methodically and devastatingly throughout a significantly longer period.
The writing is sublime. I found myself re-reading passages for the joy of it. We will Bruno to stay away from Guy. We want the perfect murder to remain just that, and I thoroughly enjoyed this journey.
The classic thriller behind the Hitchcock film, and Highsmith's first novel - soon to be remade by David Fincher, director of Gone Girl, with a screenplay by Gillian Flynn.
By the bestselling author of The Talented Mr Ripley and Carol
The psychologists would call it folie a deux . . .
'Bruno slammed his palms together. "Hey! Cheeses, what an idea! I kill your wife and you kill my father! We meet on a train, see, and nobody knows we know each other! Perfect alibis! Catch?'''
From this moment, almost against his conscious will, Guy Haines is trapped in a…
Bacon is a writer in love with language. Her prose is fluid, spontaneous, and consistently engaging, and she sparks characterisation in deft, painterly strokes. Serengotti is a literary crime novel, although it’s much more than that.
It examines culture and displacement, what happens when things turn sour, and how to right yourself. It’s a story of truth and consequences, a puzzle enough to puzzle yet not to confuse. Here, Bacon mines her African-Australian heritage and finds a rich seam. The work is infused with details that push the story forward, enhance the text, and create an environment of understanding.
Whilst much of her work is speculative, this is not the case here, but it matters not. Bacon shows us that magic can exist in the every day without embellishment. Serengotti awaits your exploration.
In the one tumultuous day, Ch’anzu loses hir job and finds wife Scarlet in bed with a stranger. As life unexpectedly spirals out of control, Ch’anzu turns to hir charismatic Aunt Maé for comfort and wisdom, and makes the bold move to work on a project in Serengotti, a migrant African outpost in rural Australia. In a novel haunted by the strangeness and yearnings of a displaced community – both beautiful and fractured – Ch’anzu is forced to confront hir many demons. Back in the city, brother Tex has gone missing. In Serengotti violence and infidelity simmer. This is a…
Candescent Blooms is a collection of twelve short stories which form fictionalised biographies of mostly Golden Era Hollywood actors who suffered untimely deaths.
From Olive Thomas in 1920 through to Grace Kelly in 1982, these pieces utilise facts, fiction, gossip, movies, and unreliable memories to examine each character's life against a Hollywood background of hope, corruption, opportunity, and reality.
