And finally…the Best Pulps from the Second Half of 2012

Posted: February 10th, 2013 | No Comments »

A lot of flying as ever in 2012, and a lot of hospital visiting too I’m afraid, so let’s not forget some of the more memorable pulps and series as I ploughed last year. Like many people, apparently, I do most of my pulp reading on Kindle (other e-book formats are available!) and, again apparently like most people, I do find I’m buying a lot to try and then ditching the dross and keeping with the good stuff. So this is not an exhaustive list but a sample of the one’s I thought worth a go…

The Broken Shore – Peter Temple – the Australian crime writer Temple has been a major new find for me in 2012. Broken Shore is a fantastically written Aussie noir in suburban Victoria and I promise if you like him you’ll head back to the bookshop or internet and get everything else he’s done. I’ve gone on to read the Jack Irish series starting with Bad Debts which is more traditional and less literary than Broken Shore, but still good and Melbourne-based – apparently they’ve made them into a TV show with Guy Pearce, which sounds all right by me.

Blue Angel, White Shadow – Charlson Ong – Ong is the outright champion of dark noir in the Philippines. See my longer review here.

Live by Night – Dennis Lehane – Lehane’s long reaching story of one American criminal and his rise and fall. Follows on nicely from his previous The Given Day which was also excellent

The Expats – Chris Pavone – a bit of a phenomenon this one with a massive marketing camapign and all that 20p on Amazon stuff, but a decent enough thriller about American ex-pats in Luxembourg and Paris.

Mumbaistan – Piyush Jha – discovered this on a trip to Mumbai at Christmas and not sure how you get it outside of going to Bombay and buying it – however Jha, a Bollywood script writer, has created a great sense of the sprawling and (for non-Indians) almost impossible to decipher Indian gangster-class in three novellas.

Anthony Horowitz did a fantastic job with Sherlock Holmes in The House of Silk. Great to see an active Watson and the Baker Street Irregulars too. A nice mix of classic Holmes style with issues in Victorian London too nasty and depraved for Conan Doyle to have ever touched on openly.

Spade and Archer – Joe Gores – what did Sam Spade get up to before Dashiel Hammett created him! Nice sense of 1920s San Francisco and a good read for any Hammett fans who love The Maltese Falcon etc.

Kiss Me Quick – Danny Miller – the first in what is expected to become a series about Vincent Treadwell a detective working in 1960s Brighton. This, the first, harks back to the classic crime-ridden Brighton of the 1930s – Sabini’s, razor gangs, race track crime etc etc. Not bad but you’d do best to read Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock if, by some horrendous accident of history you have not already.

The Shadow of the Serpent – David Ashton – the first in what could turn out to be an interesting series of darkly Gothic Edinburgh (Leith technically) set novels featuring the rather uptight but deasd hard and determined Inspector McLevy. They’re set in the city in the 1880s and, this one at least, is a Jack the Ripper like hunt through the bowels of the old town.

Deadlight – Graham Hurley – I’m working my way through Hurley’s DCI Joe Faraday novels set in and around Portsmouth. I’m a fan and have enjoyed each one and I’ve got a few to go yet – the latest Happy Days is out now and I just read Blood and Honey which takes in drugs, violence and illegal immigrants on…the Isle of Wight!

Glasgow times – I’ve also got to keep plugging Gordon Ferris’s Brodie series set in just post-War Glasgow – tough and gritty and nice descriptions of the city and the West of Scotland, the second came out this year, Bitter Water. Then, just in time for Christmas, the third, Pilgrim Soul appeared – the best of the lot so far.

Lynda La Plante’s Anna Travis series keeps on being gripping – Blood Line was a great missing person case with side trips to Cornwall and druggy surf culture.

And David Downing’s Berlin stations series featuring the American journalist John Russell now moves beyond wartime Berlin to war-torn post-war Berlin pre-division. Still going strong as a character and series I reckon, Lehrter Station was a good read

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