Features

A classic revisited: Heed the Thunder

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Jim Thompson’s second novel Heed the Thunder is a sprawling, multi-generational epic following the descent of the Fargo clan at the turn of the 19th century. Although not a noir in the strictest sense, its ominous style and cruel but sympathetic characters show clear signs…
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Little Tales of Misogyny

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Written by Patricia Highsmith — The title of Patricia Highsmith’s story collection, reissued this month by Virago, remains highly provocative even 40 years after it first appeared. As a reader, you wonder if these tales will highlight the cruelty of misogyny from a feminist perspective. Or…
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Fiddle City by Dan Kavanagh

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When Julian Barnes’s pseudonymous PI novel Duffy was reissued earlier this year, the literary author found himself welcomed into the crime genre. Written under the name Dan Kavanagh, Duffy was a scandalously funny, violent and sordid debut from a writer who was clearly relishing a…
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Book Club

Necropolis

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If you are amused by cruel humour, then a word to the wise – don’t read this book on the bus or the train, as you will be reduced to fits of giggles. Main character Dyson Devereux is an acerbic and savage commentator on the…
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The First One You Expect

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Written by Adam Cesare — There is plenty of crime fiction set in the glamorous world of Hollywood, about egomaniacal auteurs, shady producers and temperamental film stars. Elmore Leonard’s Get Shorty and Stuart M Kaminsky’s Toby Peters mystery series are good examples. Funnily enough, there…
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Book Club

The Facts of Life and Death

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Ruby Trick is an over-weight 10 year-old at a Devon primary school. Her workshy father sits at home dreaming of being a cowboy. When a serial killer strikes the flood-threatened village, John Trick acts out his fantasy by trying to form a posse to hunt…
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Necropolis

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Written by Guy Portman — Dyson Devereux is Head of Burials and Cemeteries for the local council of a fictional town in Essex, England. He has risen without trace, mainly due to the demise of his predecessor, whose funeral and cremation he helped organise. Dyson…
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