After a few false starts with unreadable “new” books, I’ve decided to indulge my baser instincts and re-read some classic crime noir … my eReader is packed with more than fifty books by Dashiell Hammett, Ross Macdonald and Mickey Spillane. Bring on the hardboiled dicks and their dames!

Noir

I’m currently working my way through the 10 books (so far) in this series about a detective with the Brighton police; DCI and DCS as the series progresses. A pretty good read, though he does have a few repetitious bits that keep reappearing (just in case you missed the earlier books?) that I skip. The very good plots keep me reading. The “dead” part of every title gives a clue to the type of enquiry.

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“The world is a dangerous place (…) There will always be blurred boundaries. There are plenty of good bad guys and bad good guys. Life’s not clear and it’s seldom fair (…) I don’t want our child growing up under the illusion that it is. Shit happens.”

― Peter James, Dead Like You

An excellent 6 volume story that manages to give some personal perspectives of wartime civilian life wrapped around the travails of an Anglo-American, ex-Communist, reporter living in Nazi Germany and surviving by acting as a spy for all sides.
Each volume is named for a Berlin train station that plays an important role in the story: Zoo Station, Silesian Station, Stettin Station, Potsdam Station, Lehrter Station, Masaryk Station.

David Downing

[ quotation source: SOHO ]

“… The John Russell series is set in Berlin during World War II and follows British-born journalist John Russell as he tries to thwart Nazism while preserving his professional integrity and personal ethics …”

Much as I’d like to read Colin Chapman: Inside the Innovator by Karl Ludvigsen, it appears to be available in hard cover only, and $40+ is beyond my budget. [Amazon]

Perhaps the publishers could follow Mr. Chapman’s lead and remove all excess weight?

The lighter paperback edition would surely leave the shelves faster.

   

ChapmanBio