Month: January 2021

The Last Mile by David Baldacci – Book Review

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The Last Mile by David Baldacci - Book Cover

Amos Decker Used to Punch Above His Weight

I bet you thought Memory Man, the first book in the Amos Decker series, was pretty great. Sure, beneath the surface it was just another run-of-the-mill crime novel—but it still stood out as something oddly gripping and refreshingly original, thanks to its 286-pound, grumpy, and socially awkward main character who remembers literally everything that has ever happened to him, down to the exact second. In The Last Mile, this oddball Amos Decker returns—a man who, on top of everything, had to avenge the murder of his own family. Now that was one hell of a start.

Especially if, like me, you once swore off David Baldacci for good, convinced he was a truly awful writer. And yet, Memory Man—I’ve got to admit—turned out to be weirdly irresistible.

Long story short: Amos caught the bastard who murdered his family—that nasty little piece of garbage—and ended up joining the FBI as an outside consultant. Just like Patrick Jane in the final season of The Mentalist.

Hey—Decker’s Starting to Lose His Mind!

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Robin Hood (2010) – Film Review

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Robin Hood (2010) movie poster

Robin Hood (2010) – Film Review

Ridley Scott’s 2010 creation is, without a doubt, the most baffling Robin Hood movie ever made (yes, including Men in Tights), which, after a reasonably well-executed opening battle scene, quickly devolves into a weird, multi-threaded mess:

Warning: major spoilers ahead! But honestly—don’t worry about it.

—Robin Hood Steals, Cheats – and Plants Wheat

Robin Hood, the SIMPLE ARCHER, under the alias of Sir Loxley, ends up delivering King Richard the Lionheart’s crown to the Queen Mother (but only by accident, because he and his bros GOT HAMMERED while sailing and forget to make a run for it).

Then Robin, the SIMPLE ARCHER, using the Sir Loxley alias, infiltrates the Loxley family, and at this point the story turns into The Taming of the Shrew, with the understandably reluctant Lady Marion (who, by the way, spends her free time ploughing, sowing, and reaping alongside peasants, and feels an irresistible urge to personally drag the common folk’s goats out of the muck.).

Robin, the SIMPLE ARCHER, secretly sows the grain he EXTORTED from Friar Tuck — in the DEAD OF NIGHT.

The Martial Arts Masters of Sherwood Forest

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Die Trying by Lee Child – Book Review

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Die Trying by Lee Child - Book cover

Since hardly anyone reads this blog anyway, I think I can safely admit—without becoming a public laughingstock—that Major Jack Reacher is one of my all-time role models! Yep, I said it. Big words, I know. But anyone who reads the thriller Die Trying will definitely find themselves admiring Lee Child’s ex-military cop hero from that point on.

Jack Reacher. Role Model. Period.

My role model, Major Jack Reacher, in the second installment of Lee Child’s excellent series (which I picked up again after some 20 years and accidentally reread) finds himself in the back of a van—alongside a very attractive FBI agent. She’s been kidnapped. My role model, Major Jack Reacher, just so happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up in the van by accident. The hopelessly dumb kidnappers in Die Trying don’t just toss him out of the van—they drag him with them. These poor fools have no idea what kind of trouble they’ve just signed up for.

Because my role model, Major Jack Reacher, is strong, smart, highly trained, cunning, and more Sherlock than Sherlock Holmes himself (see: The Hound of the Baskervilles). (Just watch how he analyzes the girl at the beginning.) His sense of justice is off the charts. He’s also the best sniper around. (You can bet a few people are gonna take a bullet to the head.)

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Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo – Book Review

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Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo - Book cover

Could Six of Crows be both a fantasy and a heist novel? Yup! The toughest guy in the docks gets hired for a mission that spans across countries. The target? A scientist whose invention boosts magic users’ powers exponentially—only to burn them out just as fast. Sounds… not ideal.

Assemble the Crew

The first part of Six of Crows is all about putting the team together. And this is where Bardugo’s novel really shines. The characters are unique and memorable—hey there, Kaz, Nina, and Ghost! And the setting, Ketterdam’s slums, feels like a twisted version of an old Dutch city that might still exist today. (Limburg maybe? Or Utrecht? Can’t say for sure.)

Wait, They’re All Teenagers?

Now, here’s where things get a little weird: all the main characters are teenagers. To pull in the YA crowd? Probably. Or maybe I just hadn’t realized I was reading a YA fantasy until now. (Entirely possible.) But Bardugo’s plan doesn’t really work, because the human brain, that lovely self-correcting machine, just automatically bumps their ages up past 20. Because, let’s be honest, it’s impossible to believe that a bunch of 15–17-year-olds could be this professional, this good, at so many things.

Stir Crazy! (Jailhouse Nonsense)

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The King’s Gambit by John Maddox Roberts – Book Review

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The King's Gambit by John Maddox Roberts – Book cover

In the opening volume of what is now a historical crime series spanning more than ten books, Decius, a low-ranking official at the very bottom of the Roman hierarchy, begins investigating the murder of a freed slave. The time: 70 BC, smack in the middle of the Roman Republic’s period of crisis. And guess who Decius runs into right in the very first chapter of The King’s Gambit? Bingo, you got it: the equally green and freshly ambitious Gaius Julius Caesar. Later on, of course, more famous faces from the era show up—everyone from Pompey the Great and Cicero to the scoundrel Publius Clodius Pulcher.

More of a Historical Novel than a Whodunit

Now, technically speaking, The King’s Gambit is a crime novel—it checks off a bunch of the genre’s usual boxes (forensic expert, informant, tough-guy sidekick)—but you still kind of feel like you’re reading historical fiction. The investigation itself is pretty thin, not particularly thrilling or original (there are moments when John Maddox Roberts rather clumsily uses well-known historical facts just to nudge the plot forward—hello, pirates), and most of the time it gets drowned out by long digressions into the political and historical dynamics of the day. Not least because young Decius becomes OBSESSED with the idea that he’s stumbled right into the middle of an anti-state conspiracy. And that everyone is out to get him. Um… what?!

A Conspiracy? Oh, Please.

That grand conspiracy claim eventually fizzles out and turns into nothing more than a plain old political scheme. Typical. But Decius doesn’t let go—he keeps digging into the case. No one understands why he’s MAKING SUCH A FUSS over a murdered slave. No one. Not even you.

The first book in John Maddox Roberts’s SPQR series honestly feels more like the pilot episode of a detective TV show. It’s a bit clunky, a little unsteady, but maybe not terrible—and you can’t help but hope the series eventually finds its stride.

It Feels Like You’re Actually in Rome

What definitely works in The King’s Gambit’s favor, though, is its setting, which feels completely authentic. For instance, I gave up on the similarly themed Gordianus series precisely because it lacked that feeling. It didn’t help that I had just finished reading Colleen McCullough’s epic Masters of Rome series, which made Gordianus fall flat by comparison.

Luckily, The King’s Gambit doesn’t suffer the same fate. In fact, quite the opposite. Almost every other paragraph drops in some piece of information so naturally woven into the text that it helps you better understand the political and civic backdrop of the time—or just makes you feel like you’re right there, tagging along with eager-beaver Decius through the cramped, stone-paved alleyways of ancient Rome.

Rating: 6.9/10

The King’s Gambit (SPQR #1) by John Maddox Roberts
274 pages, Paperback
Published in 1990 by Minotaur Books
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The Fort by Adrian Goldsworthy

Gods of War by James Lovegrove – Book Review

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Gods of War by James Lovegrove - Book cover

A Lukewarm Investigation Begins

In Gods of War, James Lovegrove’s crime novel, Sherlock Holmes is now in his sixties. No surprise, then, that his joints creak and crack like an old staircase. And chubby Dr. Watson? Let’s be honest—he’s not exactly in top shape anymore either. Lucky for them, they barely need to do anything in this story.

The great detective, get this, can’t even be bothered to pull off the biggest cliché in every Holmes story—using his signature method to deduce, without breaking a sweat, what extraordinary adventures his long-lost buddy had on his train ride—because, supposedly, he’s “too excited about the new case.” Which, by the way, turns out to be nothing more than a pathetic little burglary.

(Feels a bit cheap, doesn’t it? I mean, how hard would it have been for Lovegrove to throw in that Watson’s seatmate across the aisle was an elderly, half-limping horse trader from Devonshire on his way to buy feed for his prize stallion, Oxhead—while to his right sat a spinster in a pheasant-feathered hat, off to visit her sister, who suffers from trichotillomania, casually reading Northanger Abbey, fourth edition.

Cost him nothing.)

Laurel and Hardy Back on the Case!

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Blood Will Follow by Snorri Kristjansson – Book Review

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Blood Will Follow by Snorri Kristjansson - Book Cover

In the Name of Christ – with an Axe

King Olav Tryggvason has decided to unite all of Norway in the holy name of Christ. And anyone unwilling to share his faith is going to get a good solid whack on the head with an axe. The various plot threads all come together beneath the walls of the city of Stenvik, where a bunch of old-school Vikings dissenters — stubbornly clinging to their traditional, low-maintenance religion — are planning to whack King Olav on the head right back, also with an axe. So yeah—forget the word of Christ. Blood Will follow.

The first book in Snorri Kristjansson’s trilogy, Swords of Good Men, was a pretty decent historical novel — though you might’ve lost your enthusiasm a bit with the overload of hard-to-tell-apart characters, the constant switching of points of view, and the somewhat clumsy start to the plot. Luckily, during the siege, the story picked up steam. Though the inclusion of fantasy-style blood magic in an otherwise historically grounded novel might have caused a few readers to raise an eyebrow.

Everything Clashes With Everything Else

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Saga: Volume One by Brian K. Vaughan · Fiona Staples – Comic Book Review

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Saga: Volume One by Brian K. Vaughan · Fiona Staples - comic book cover

Everything is shit

“Am I shitting? It feels like I’m shitting!”

With these immortal words, the Saga comic series by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples kicks off—in the middle of a childbirth scene, no less. If your immediate reaction is to think, “Maybe this is trying to shock me,” well, you wouldn’t be wrong… But hey, it’s the 21st century, so who doesn’t give a FUCK? who doesn’t give a GOOD GODDAMN?

That said, I wouldn’t exactly recommend the Saga comic to prudes in good conscience, as this is far from the ONLY instance like this.

For example, you’ll encounter dangling male genitalia more than once, swinging in all its glory. Then, you’ll visit a brothel planet and stumble straight into a full-blown orgy. Later, you’ll meet a character with more legs than arms and more eyes than ears. And at this point, you might start doubting yourself: could it be, purely by chance, that you’re just a tad bit twisted for thinking this bizarre creature is sexy as hell…?

But oh yes, it’s entirely possible!

(Oh, and she spends every one of her scenes rocking a monokini. So, if you didn’t already know what arachnophilia is, you’re about to find out.)

And yet, all of this is still not the point.

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The Helicopter Heist by Jonas Bonnier – Book Review

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The Helicopter Heist by Jonas Bonnier - book cover

A Scandinavian Crime Novel, With a Touch of Robbery

Jonas Bonnier’s book is roughly the chance meeting on the dissecting table of Scandinavian crime and documentary fiction. Or something like that. Not entirely, though, because the genre is mostly referenced through the setting, but the usual whining is nowhere to be found. (You know, when the noble Nordic characters are relentlessly depressed from page one, yet their names and genders remain a mystery for ages.) And if you’re worried – since the book is based on a true story – that it’s just a list of facts thrown together, you can forget that, too. The Helicopter Heist has been streamlined into a full-on novel.

In 2009, a few guys robbed the G4S cash logistics company’s Stockholm depot using a helicopter. (Hundreds of millions of kronor were flying around.) The novel tells the story of the planning and the heist.

Bad Guys? Interesting!

Bonnier’s book isn’t as thrilling or full of twists as the heist genre would lead you to expect. The part of the book dedicated to preparation, unsurprisingly, takes up most of the story and could be described as, at best, moderately interesting. (Obviously, things pick up during the action part.)

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Chasing the Dead by Tim Weaver – Book Review

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Chasing the Dead by Tim Weaver - Book Cover

You might already be drooling in anticipation because Chasing the Dead by Tim Weaver seems like one of those dark and brooding crime thrillers that Dennis Lehane typically delivers. And to be fair, the book does start off on the right foot: you immediately empathize with David Raker after his great tragedy, and maybe you even grow to like this meek, good-hearted soul. The investigation is solid enough too, barring a few hiccups in the dialogue, like:

“Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Are you sure it’s really real?”

Why is everyone acting so weird here?!

Furthermore, Tim Weaver introduces such a twisted antagonist that you might just crap your pants! You’re so freaked out that you barely notice how bizarre most of the characters in Chasing the Dead are. For instance, they casually rat out their well-paying clients for a measly 200 quid or, for no apparent reason, suddenly off themselves!

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