I’m sure I’m not the only reader who was excited to receive P. D. James’ new novel, Death Comes to Pemberly for Christmas this year. The novel, a sequel of sorts to Pride and Prejudice, follows Elizabeth Darcy to her new home, Pemberly, in Derbyshire. Set six years after Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth is now settled and happily married to Mr. Darcy. Continue reading
For a long time I thought fantasy fiction was the sort of thing I should avoid. I didn’t like Lord of the Rings that much and I found The Hobbit a bit, well, childish. I preferred grittier or loftier things to read. Or so I thought. This week I picked up – metaphorically that is: I actually downloaded – George R. R. Martin’s A Game Of Thrones and it’s proved me wrong. It is packed with the sort of fantasy tropes I thought I’d hate – dragon eggs, dwarves, a mysterious group of creatures called The Others – but I could hardly put it down and have gone out and bought the next in the series.
Why was I so struck? Because of it’s grandeur and ambition I think. The books are about war and fantasy but they are also about politics and ambition. Modern literary fiction and crime fiction don’t really deal with the scope of politics and leadership very well and, all to often, they pay lip service to matters of state so that they fall short and feel false. In part because they are necessarily short these days: big books are harder to sell. George R. R. Martin doesn’t do this. A Game of Thrones is a fascinating examination of why men and women in positions of power act as they do and it shows the consequences of these actions in vivid detail. I can’t wait to keep reading the series and it’s great to be proven wrong too.
I don’t think I’ve seen a signed edition of a Chandler novel before but, should you be keen to add one to your collection you can thanks to Lucius Rare Books in York. It’ll only set you back £19500 and though that sounds like a huge amount of money but that just goes to show how uncommon a thing you’d be buying. It belonged to Joe Messick, husband of Juanita Messick, Ray’s secretary from 1950 onwards. Let me know if you buy it.
Lucius Books. Rare Books, First Editions, Signed copies in York, UK.
Right now every publisher wants to get themselves a C. J. Samson. It’s easy to see why. His books, set in the during the latter period of Henry VIII’s rule featuring lawyer-cum-sleuth Matthew Shardlake, are entertaining, fast paced and are rich with historical details. Continue reading
The Big Sleep in LA Noire
I’ve been having a lot of fun with LA Noire recently, particularly stumbling across the Chandler references that the game makes. And, as in my earlier post, I wanted to share a few more. Continue reading
According to Red Magazine, The Hypnotist is ‘One of the best – if not the best – Scandinavian crime thrillers I’ve read…’, or at least that’s what the back cover of the book says. That’s a pretty strong recommendation, which ever way you cut it, but it’s also the Larsson siren call that we’re going to hear a lot of for the next few years. Any crime writer with a name that looks like there’s too many consonants in it or that has an Ø in it – ideally both – is going to be similarly beatified. At least until after David Fincher’s films come out. Continue reading
Chandler Stuff, a set on Flickr.
For the last couple of years I’ve been trying to collect some shots of Chandler locations in Los Angeles, London and Paris. I am not the best photographer so you will have to bear with me.
Some are more famous than others – Ray’s office at the Bank of Italy building is less well known that the Deitrichson house from Double Indemnity – but I hope you find them interesting all the same. I don’t think anyone lese has taken a picture of Ray’s pension in Paris where he lived in 1905.
Via Flickr:
These are the pictures related to my research in Raymond Chandler
This review, by Adam Mars-Jones, has been published on the Guardian website. I’ve not read Gordon Bowker’s book yet but I have it and am looking forward to it. One of the things that struck me though about this review was Adam Mars-Jones comment:
The Cover From The Second Edition of The Simple Art of Murder, a collection of Chandler stories published by Houghton Mufflin in 1950 and prefaced by the essay.
Raymond Chandler’s essay The Simple Art of Murder is pretty much required reading for any Chandler fan and any aspiring crime writer. It is one of those essays that has earned a place in literary history for its title as much as its thesis. Appearing in The Atlantic Monthly in December 1944, it’s a serious examination of the genre and it reveals plenty about Ray and about how he approached writing so to my mind it is interesting in both a biographical sense and a literary one. Continue reading
