The G File by Hakan Nesser - Another Van Veeteren Masterpiece!

Think "Scandinavian Thriller" and it is a fair chance that your mind will conjure up snow-laden landscapes, small villages in which a handful of not-too-social-people dwell, all drenched more often than not in a fair bit of depression and gloom introspection. No, we are not saying that the folk who write on crime in the upper regions of Europe are bad thriller writers - nay, we actually think they spin better yarns than most of their brethren in England and across the Atlantic. It's just that they tend to be a bit on the morbid and moribund side when it comes to tone. You can almost see the darkness and the fog floating across the pages as you read most of them.

But not Hakan Nesser. 

No, Nesser does not write what people call 'comedic crime.' He is as much a thriller writer as a Henning Mankell or an Arnaldur Indridason. However, unlike those worthies (who are both very good incidentally), his books are lit up with rays of wit and humour. If he reminds me of anyone, it is of Peter Lovesey. Their business is grim, and crime is never trivialised, but the main characters do not roam around moping and philosophising to glory.  No, they do pull each other's leg occasionally and there is a fair bit of wit in the pages to keep you entertained, without making you go "oh, lord, what is the point of it all and why are we here."

The Fight by Norman Mailer: The Best Sports Book EVER Written?

Right, that was a rather long heading, I know. But then The Fight is that sort of book.
You know, when you think of boxing, somehow you don't think of class. You think of two big, muscular men, each trying to beat the other to the canvas, cheered by hundreds of people, baying for blood.
Boxing evokes images that are gladiatorial. Brutal. But not elegant. Not classy.
But then it is not often that someone like Norman Mailer writes about the sport. The man considered by many to be one of the literary greats of the last century, was one of the dozens of writers who flocked to Zaire in 1974 to see what many had hailed as the fight of the century - Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman.
Ali had lost the world heavyweight title a few years ago. Foreman had won it off the man who defeated Ali. Ali was supposed to be old and past it. Foreman a monster who destroyed rather than defeated opponents.
And they were fighting not in Las Vegas or Madison Square Garden, but in the middle of Africa. In Kinshasa, Zaire.
It was a battle not just of two people, but two styles, two religions (Ali insisted on making it a Holy War) and indeed two cultures.
NOW imagine one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century writing about it.

Book Review: Strange Shores (Murder in Reykjavik)

The likes of Stieg Larsson, Jo Nesbo and Henning Mankell might have grabbed most of the spotlight in the recent (indeed ongoign) Scandinavian thriller writer wave, but they are only the tip of what seems to be quite an astounding crime and thriller writing iceberg. And perhaps one author who actually more than matches that illustrious trio is Arnaldur Indridason, with his Murder in Reykjavik series, featuring Detective Erlendur, a quiet, efficient man with a keen sense of justice.

Strange Shores is being called the last book in the Erlendur series. It is the first one I have read (I have not seen others in bookstores, alas - time to head to the Kindle once again) and I certainly hope that Indridason does not retire him. For, Strange Shores has a feature that one does not often see in thrillers.

Elegance.

Book Review: Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck

"This is not an etiquette book..."

Those are the very first words of author Amy Alkon in her book, Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck (if I had an award to hand out to Best Book Title, I would have already given it to her). And well, to an extent, she is right. Good Manners... is not your conventional etiquette book. It does not come with elaborate instructions of how to lay out cutlery and dining table seating positions. 

It is instead about something far more important than etiquette - decent human behaviour. No, that is not really etiquette if one goes by the strict meaning of the word (etiquette has more to do with social norms and the like), but if what you are really concerned about how to behave decently and how to handle the rude, this is pretty much the book for you.