Month: June 2020

Book review: Get Carter

Get Carter.Get Carter by Ted Lewis.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars.

Well now.

As the saying goes, it’s grim up north. The grimness undoubtedly is multiplied when you’re hired crime muscle normally found in London, and you’re only headed back to your northern home town because your brother has died.

Do I look happy to bloody be here?

Sorry, “died”.

This is how we find Jack Carter: a cool mix of suspicion, grief and nice suits paid for with ill-gotten gains, training it north to find out what the fuck’s gone on with his brother, and – most importantly – who’s to blame. (more…)

Book review: The Gallows Pole

The Gallows Pole.The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars.

I’m a bit behind in my reviews, but I knew as soon as I finished this novel I’d have to bang one out. It’s ridiculously good – an historical novel rooted in truth that also manages to be a psychogeographical, folk-horror wonder. And features the following threat:

I’ll stitch your scut hole shut and feed you moldy parsnips all day long

How could I not give it a rave-up? (more…)

Book review: In Search of Lost Time Volume I: Swann’s Way

In Search of Lost Time Volume I: Swann's Way.In Search of Lost Time Volume I: Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars.

So with a pandemic raging and the world basically on fire, I figured it was as good a time as any to tackle what’s considered one of the world’s longest novels, Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.

I’m a fancy boy. 

It is, demonstrably, an indulgent fugue written by a mama’s boy with a fixation on minutiae and madeleines. But it’s also kind of perfect reading – escapism – for when you need a break from what’s going on outside. (more…)