035. London Boulevard (2001).

London Boulevard by Ken Bruen (2001).

Cars, women, criminals and an impossibly cool main guy.

The pure definition of pulp fiction.

  

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layers. –Mitchell.   A mid-forty con who just gets out of prison. After a few years in jail, he wants to put everything behind and to be a regular guy, like that’s ever going to happen. Fat chance. 

Like all the cool characters in Tarantino movies, he spits out tons of cool phrases. Unfortunately, like all the Tarantino dialogues, I only understand maybe quarter of what he says. In fact, I am wondering if there are any meaning at all behind them other than off course sounding impressively cool. 

He is a man of few words and at the same time a sole narrator of this book. 

Naturally, all the sentences are staccato short and the pace is brisk creating a perfect pulp fiction.

 He has a mentally unstable but super gorgeous sister named Briony who has a serious shoplifting problems.

Norton.   A low intelligent low life. Mitchell’s buddy (?). 

Grant.   A typical British low life gang boss. A big and mean bastard who tries really hard to get meaner and crueler with every opportunity lies in front of him.

Lillian.   An old, out of spot light but still beautiful, semi-retired actress who hires Mitchell as a handyman. 

She seduces him and rides him like a stallion as often as possible.

Jordan.   A mysterious butler who can expertly handle everything from garden tools to heavy artilleries. Alfred with no emotion and no empathy.

Probably the most powerful man in this book and a dependable ally to Mitchell when it comes down to handle the criminals because he DOES know how to deal with them properly if you know what I mean. How and Why is for you to find out.

He is completely devoted to his employee, Lillian and will do anything to keep her happy.

                                     

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lace. –London, Britain. Well, it could be anywhere really because the place doesn’t matter at all, as long as there are bars to drink away, banks to rob of, clubs to dance with..etc...

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lot. – It has a common theme that fires every action packed thriller: REVENGE!

Very simple but effective if it is handled properly and that’s what you get with this hugely entertaining book: a masterfully crafted dark-revenge-drama with just enough humor, action, love, betray and everything else.

Like all the classic pulp fictions, this book is true to its formula.

Here is the golden structure.

1.    Man gets out of jail.

2.    Trouble or unfinished business is waiting for him.

3.    Man finds a way around.

4.    Trouble/s**t stars piling up.

5.    BOOM!!

6.    And off course, one final twist.

7.    Is he standing on the right side of grass?

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erdict. –This book is consisted of 30% of short dialogue, 40% of sporadic monologue and 30% of empty space to fill up the pages. So literary, you can finish the book in 4 to 5 hours if you put your mind into it which is not hard at all because the chances are that you won’t be able to put it down until you reach the final and mother-of-all-twists ending. 

At the end, when it seems everything is just wounding up, true ending comes out of nowhere and puts entire storyline into a new perspective. It’s truly fantastic!! 

There is absolutely no extra stuffs in this book. The stories (there are multiple storylines) is told fast and straight and every other elements that makes books thicker like detail and emotion is kept to absolute minimum. 

If you are looking for 4 hrs of pure entertainment (adrenalin rush, black humor, sweet revenge, killer twist, Etc.), London Boulevard is your dream come true.

One more thing. Ken Bruen throws in lots of names in conversation. All of them are not just real writers but also masters of mysteries. So if you are looking for your next book after this….

034. The Widow Killer (1995) .

The Widow Killer by Pavel Kohout (1995).

         

In the final days of Nazi occupation in Prague, a serial killer with serious mental problem is butchering his way through the nights, leaving hideous sculptures (?) of human remains.

Sounds interesting, right?

But this consists of only the quarter of the story.

The rest is filled with grand detail of the war, superb murder mystery and inevitable heavy tension between Czech and Gestapo detectives, making this truly remarkable book to include in your book collection.

  

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layers. –There are three sides in this book. Czech side, Nazi side and then a killer who sort of belong to Czech side but ultimately stays in his own fantasy land.

Jan Morava.   A rookie police detective who is eager to prove himself to the legendary inspector Beran.

He is well built and well trained and more than capable of taking care of himself.

He is started out as a young rookie kid with bright mind but no experience. However at the end of everything (yes, he literary goes through heaven to hell), he becomes the man and more over, the leader.

 Kind of life made for the film.

Erwin Buback.   A great police inspector turned a Gestapo agent. The process of turning cops into Gestapo under Third Reich was mandatory, by the way.

Lost both wife and daughter to the bombing and since then, he has been looking for a reason to live.

The only Gestapo agent in Prague who can actually think with brain and does the proper police work.

A serial killer.    This could be the most deranged serial killer in my recent memory. The bad guy here is completely messed up.

He got brain-damage during the war and ever since became dangerously delusional: no boundary between reality and fantasy. He also frequently fades away to oblivion while just sitting on the bench or chair.

Just like Anthony Perkins in Psycho, he talks to his dead mother all the time and no, he doesn’t keeps his mum’s remain in his closet. Just lots of sharp knives to play with dead widows.

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lace. –Prague at the end of WW2. Since this is a very typical history based thriller where the real historic events and the surrounding of them are generally more important than either story or characters, it is extremely lucky for us that the writer of this book was one of survivors of political uprising in 1968’ Prague. In other word, Pavel Kohout knows his material inside out better than any writers out there ‘cause he was simply there when it happened. Also he is a hell of a writer, too.

Anyway, what I am getting here is that whoever lucky enough to pick up this book will know everything there is to know about Prague during the war: food, jobs, buildings, sewer system, economy, politics and even fashion.

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lot. – In the final days of WW2, on top of all the turmoil, the city of Prague is attacked by a seriously confused serial killer (more like a butcher from hell) who is specialized in dismembering widows with truly sick sense of justice(?).

And it is up to two men, Erwin Buback and Jan Morava, to stop this out of control killer and his hideous crime spree.

That is the thriller part.

The literature part is like this: Buback represents the German side of the war story. Morava, Czech’s. And this is the core of this book, I think.

Buback, as a Gestapo agent, knows a lot about the war the way only insiders’ know. And since after his rude awakening with his very wise wife (now deceased), he has been strongly doubting Hitler and his agenda. Bottom line is that he just can’t come up with any reasons for the fighting anymore and because of that, he is very cautious of what he is saying and doing because Nazi is zealously cruel when it gets down to 

the doubters.

Morava, on the other hand, is a young and straight forward Czech man who represents the oppressed. His job is not just going after the serial killer (which he does really well too), but to show the life of true Czechs during and the end of Nazi occupation. He and his colleagues represent everything there to know about being  

Czech.

For the plot line, this novel is divided into roughly two parts.

 The first half is your basic “developing story, introducing characters and their background” part.

The second half is a whole different story. With the death of Hitler, the uprising takes over Prague!! Once mighty Nazi is rapidly losing its ground and Czechs are getting wild screaming revenge!! And with all the chaos surrounding the city, our deranged serial killer sets himself free like a shark in the tank full of fat fishes. He kills and kills and kills and nobody pay any attention to him because they are too busy killing each others. War creates whole bunch of serial killers, I guess.

And it all comes down to one shocking ending. Just a Brilliant book.

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erdict. –This book is pure definition of a great and thoughtful period mystery: rich with historic background and full of vivid description of Prague and its citizens with excellent storyline and equally excellent characters.”

However, he just made one mistake, here. One simple but costly one, I think. The title “The Widow Killer” just doesn’t do the justice for this magnificent book. It sounds too narrow and sensational and contemporary and over all, cheap.

This book is not a simple mystery, far from it. This is a well-researched and brilliantly written war time literature with lots of fascinating characters with whole bunch of different backgrounds.  And of course, a crazy son of a bitch, literary, who thinks of himself as a war hero.

So don’t judge this book by its title. The chasing of the widow killer is a big part of the story but it’s only one part of the huge story line which includes everything there is to know about war in Prague.

It’s a wonderful book which requires a serious reading but well worth the effort.

033. The Brothers of Baker Street (2011).

The Brothers of Baker Street by Michael Robertson (2011).

         

A second adventure of Reggie and Nigel Heath.

A very unique take on Sherlock Holmes on 21st century.

For one thing, none of the brothers (Reggie and Nigel) are detectives and they are not that good at solving mysteries ‘cause they are lawyers!!

Yet, they are forced to face the cases that require Sherlock like intuition.

Only because they happen to rent “221B Baker St.” for their law office by mistake.

Somebody should make a TV series for this. Really.

  

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layers. – There are four important characters in this book. The rest are just extras.

Reggie Heath.   Older and more serious Heath. A barrister (lawyer) who was the sharpest and the best in the league but after a few crazy incident ( “The Baker Street Letters”, the brother’s first adventure), decided to quite the criminal justice and now kind of looking for the new clienteles which don’t involves criminals.

With his first case as a “Sherlock Holmes” (yes, he and his brother are forced to act as the legend when they sign the lease agreement with 221B Baker St. For more detail, just check out page 12 under “Additional Duties of the Lessee”. It’s hilarious), he lost almost everything: his decent amount of fortune, a beautiful girl friend and with that, a bit of confidence too. 

He is the one who always takes care of his younger brother.

Nigel Heath.   A more relaxed, casual and adventurous Heath. 

After the last case, he got his lawyer license suspended and now lives in LA doing…something.

He married a woman named Mara whom he met during the first case.

Quite a good listener and good investigator.

Although no where near Sherlock Holmes, Nigel and Reggie, together with the help of Laura, make one perfect (and lovable?) Sherlock Holmes. What a brilliant concept!!

Laura. A gorgeous stage actress who is about to become a new superstar.

She is one of those classic “Beauty with Brain”: smart, careful, considerate and thoughtful.

She is stuck between Reggie and Billionaire Buxton for love triangle and that makes a great subplot for this book. It is so juicy, it takes over entire storyline for a couple of chapters in the middle section of the book.

Moriarty. Yes, there is Moriarty in this book. But, because we have quite different Sherlock Holmes in here, inevitably Moriarty follows the same trend. 

Moriarty in this book is significantly scaled down on its evilness and not a genius criminal master mind that he is sooo famously known for.

                                   

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lace. –Present day London, England. More precisely, 221B BAKER STREET, probably the most famous fictional address ever created by human being.

Even today, people from all around the world send letter to this address for the famous sleuth’s advice. Kind of like North Pole for the troubled soul.

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lot. – A black cab driver is accused of killing a couple of innocent tourists and his solicitor somehow convinces our hero Reggie to take the case. As soon as he starts working on the case, a typed letter arrives on his office  with the name Moriarty on the bottom.

From there, the second case of the Brothers of Baker Street which involves a black cab and the most famous villain in the history of mystery keeps rolling and rolling until it reaches three different but entwined climaxes for each of the main characters: Reggie, Nigel and Laura. (Yes, each one has his/her own exciting endings.)

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erdict. –Splitting Sherlock Holmes into two totally different characters (brothers) is such a simple and brilliant idea, Michael Robertson should get some kind of award from Conan Doyle Foundation (if indeed such thing actually exists.).

Even if the feel of the book is quite different from the original: light-hearted, delightful and funny, as opposes to the original’s mysterious, scary and sometime dangerous atmosphere, this book still has enough kick and twist to hold its own against the original masterpiece.

Now, I’m waiting for the TV series.

This could be more like hugely entertaining Elementary than much more serious BBC masterpiece Sherlock.