iBookKindlePrintReviews

Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto

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Translated by Jesse Kirkwood –– Penguin’s new translation of Seichō Matsumoto‘s classic Tokyo Express is both modern and respectful of the original Japanese text from 1958, with the action taking place a little earlier in 1957. It’s a book you can immerse yourself in –…
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iBookKindlePrintReviews

Syndrome E

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Written by Franck Thilliez, translated by Mark Pilozzotti — Franck Thilliez has written many bestsellers in his native France. If his other books are of equal quality to this complex, multi-layered thriller, then Penguin, publisher of this translation, can rest assured it has picked a winner. Syndrome E…
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Features

Interview: Quentin Bates

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Quentin Bates moved to Iceland at the end of the 1970s for a gap year which turned into a gap decade, merrily acquiring a new language, family and profession over there. As well as being a commercial fishing expert, he is the author of a series…
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iBookKindlePrintReviews

NTN: Until the Debt is Paid

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Written by Alexander Hartung, translated by Steve Anderson — Until the Debt is Paid was Alexander Hartung’s second novel in German, and the first to feature his Berlin detective Jan Tommen. After a weekend of hard drinking, Tommen wakes up with the mother of all…
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iBookKindlePrintReviews

Three-Card Monte

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Written by Marco Malvaldi, translated by Howard Curtis — Three-Card Monte is the second instalment in the Bar Lume series, (we reviewed Game For Five here) which are bestsellers in the author’s native Italy. Set in a small coastal town in Tuscany, the book once…
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iBookKindlePrintReviews

A Man's Head

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Written by Georges Simenon, translated by David Coward — Having accrued an incomplete collection of dog-eared, yellowed and slightly foxed editions of Simenon’s Maigret novels by scavenging second hand bookshops, Penguin’s project to reprint all 75 of them was music to my ears. This set…
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Book Club

Dog Will Have His Day

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The Three Evangelists appeared in English in 2006, and this is the long awaited sequel by Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau, AKA Fred Vargas. The story opens with the bizarre discovery of a human toe bone in a random dog turd. Louis Kehlweiler is the sharp-eyed observer. He…
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