Review: DEVIL-DEVIL, Graeme Kent

Published Soho Press 2011
ISBN 978-1-56947-873-8
281 pages
Source: my local library

Publisher's blurb
It's not easy being Ben Kella. As a sergeant in the Solomon Islands Police Force, as well as an aofia, a hereditary spiritual peacekeeper of the Lau people, he is viewed with distrust by both the indigenous islanders and the British colonial authorities.
In the past few days he has been cursed by a magic man, stumbled across evidence of a cargo cult uprising, and failed to find an American anthropologist who had been scouring the mountains for a priceless pornographic icon.
Then, at a mission station, Kella discovers an independent and rebellious young American nun, Sister Conchita, secretly trying to bury a skeleton. The unlikely pair of Kella and Conchita are forced to team up to solve a series of murders that tie into all these other strange goings on.
Set in the 60's in one of the most beautiful and dangerous areas of the South Pacific, Devil-Devil launches an exciting new series.

My take:
 
Sister Conchita is new to Malaita. In fact, she's relatively new to being a nun, but she's wiry, resourceful, determined, and outspoken. In her training she studied island religions and Solomons culture although she has yet to come to terms with how island customs can live side by side with her Catholicism. On her first day on Malaita she stops an Australian trader from removing protected glory shells from the island. She unwittingly makes an enemy who will try to kill her several times in the future, to make sure she never thwarts him again.

Ben Kella on the other hand was born on Malaita and has a dual leadership role. Since he was eight years old he has been the recognised aofia, the leader of the the Lau people of Malaita Island. In addition he represents the law, for he's a sergeant in the Solomons police force. He stands as bridge between the two cultures but often neither side sees him that way. Ben was brought to adulthood by the Catholic mission on Malaita, and he has an overseas university degree. But he has also rejected the Christian way, deciding he can only follow the "custom" way. He's an imposing figure, black, very big in many ways. The islanders call him a white black.

Kella had some problems prior to this novel, causing the death of a missionary, and was recalled to head office in Honiara for six months. Now he's being sent by his Chief Superintendent back to Malaita to find a missing American anthropologist, and told to focus just on that mission. Two days into his journey and already he is disobeying instructions. A village headman has asked him to assist in discovering what lies behind the unexpected death of an elderly widower. This involves him in participating in a session with a ghost-caller, bringing back the dead. From then we know that life is never simple if Ben Kella is around.

For a relatively short novel, DEVIL-DEVIL is complex. At the beginning I kept feeling that perhaps there had been an earlier novel, but in retrospect I don't think there was. It was just that the author had a certain amount of back-story that needed to be revealed as the plot developed.

Part of the novel's complexity comes from the fact that the author is showing us crimes such as deaths and theft in a Melanesian "custom" setting. There's an interesting but somewhat peculiar relationship developed between the policeman, who must be middle-aged, having fought in the war against Japan in early 1940s, and the young nun, just in her twenties. Adding to the complexity is the network of relationships and obligations that bind the islanders to each other, which outsiders like Sister Conchita and Kella's Chief Superintendent have great difficulty in understanding.

I found the final few pages a bit of a let-down and a bit tedious. It seems to rush the final explanations by telling rather than letting the reader form these conclusions from what they've seen. Nevertheless an interesting novel that holds that attention all the way.

My rating: 4.3

I'm counting DEVIL-DEVIL in the 2011 Global Reading Challenge (admittedly I've modified my Australasian section to read Australasia/Oceania to accommodate it), the British Books Challenge for Graeme Kent is British, and among my new-to-me authors.

Other reviews you might like to check:
International Noir Fiction
Reviewing the Evidence
Joe Barone's Blog

Sunday Salon: 17 April: top crime fiction

This week I've read a book that I gave my top rating of 5.
I haven't given very many of those in the 55 books I've read so far this year but A THOUSAND CUTS by Simon Lelic is a crime fiction title that will make you sit up and take notice.


It looks like you might need a reminder too that over on Fair Dinkum Crime this month we are celebrating Aussie Authors Month  with the Fair Dinkum Baker's Dozen, a series of interviews with Australian authors. We've approached the author interview a little differently, trying to offer the authors (who we thought must get asked a few standard questions fairly frequently) the opportunity to share some of their lesser known secrets. Or not, it's entirely up to them. We provide the authors with 13 beginnings and, like the creative geniuses they are, they turn them into sentences (or paragraphs, or full blown essays should the urge arise).

Our first Fair Dinkum Quiz
To further help celebrate Aussie Authors Month we're offering a selection of slightly loved books (i.e. bought new, read once) from some great Australian authors as prizes for our inaugural quiz. In keeping with our baker's dozen theme there are 13 questions ranging in difficulty from 'googlable' to 'should probably have read a few posts on Fair Dinkum before attempting this quiz' to 'oh heck I hate quizzes'. Find The Fair Dinkum Quiz #1 here. Closing date for entries is midnight on 24 April 2011 (Australian central standard time which is GMT +9.5)

My other posts this week:

• Australian readers get a (kindle) e-book break!
• My top crime fiction reads so far for 2011
• Forgotten Book: DEATH OF AN ENGLISHMAN, Magdalen D Nabb
• Crime Fiction Alphabet: N or M?, Agatha Christie
• Review: DEATH AT THE PRESIDENT'S LODGING, Michael Innes
• Crime Fiction Alphabet 2011 - Letter N - week beginning April 11
• Review: TEN LITTLE NIGGERS, Agatha Christie

 News & Headlines

• 5 questions for Donna Leon
• Longlist for the CWA Dagger in the Library, 2011
• Ian Fleming and Agatha Christie lead list of UK's top-earning crimewriters

Currently Reading

• now: DEVIL-DEVIL, Graeme Kent
• next: A GRAVE IN THE COTSWOLDS, Rebecca Tope
• then - THE FACILITY, Simon Lelic
• next on Kindle - THE LEOPARD, Jo Nesbo
• now on audio - THE JUDGEMENT OF STRANGERS, Andrew Taylor
• current Agatha Christie - SAD CYPRESS

Australian readers get a (kindle) e-book break!

An author whose books I really enjoy is Leighton Gage, whose series features Chief Inspector Mario Silva.
His books are set in Brazil, but often begin with some event of worldwide significance.

Here is the series
2008 BLOOD OF THE WICKED
2009 BURIED STRANGERS
2010 DYING GASP
2010 EVERY BITTER THING
2011 A VINE IN THE BLOOD

I have reviewed (and enjoyed) these two
4.9, BLOOD OF THE WICKED
4.7, DYING GASP

I do have paperback copies of BURIED STRANGERS and EVERY BITTER THING that I must read.
A couple of weeks ago, Leighton contacted me to say that he was going to ensure that a Kindle copy would be available of VINE IN THE BLOOD ahead of the paper version.

I'm pleased to say that for Australian readers this has happened!

Click on the image to the left and you will be transported to Amazon.

Publishers blurb
It is the eve of the FIFA World Cup, the globe's premier sporting event. The host country is Brazil. A victory for the home team is inextricably linked to the skills of the country's principal striker, Tico "The Artist" Santos, the greatest player in the history of the sport. All the politicians in Brasilia, from the President of the Republic on down, have their seats squared-away for the finale, when they hope to see Argentina, Brazil's bitterest rival, humbled by the Brazilian eleven. But then, just three weeks before the first game, Juraci Santos, Tico's mother, is kidnapped. The star is distraught. The public is appalled. The politicians are outraged. And the pressure is on Chief Inspector Mario Silva to get her back.

Suspects aren't lacking. Among them, are a cabal of Argentineans, suspected of having spirited the lady away to put Tico off his game, the star's gold-digging, top-model girlfriend, whom his mother dislikes and has been trying to get out of his life, his principal rival, who wants to play in the World Cup in Tico's place, and the man whose leg Tico broke during a match, thereby destroying his career. In the end, Silva and his crew discover that the solution to the mystery is less complex - but entirely unexpected.
This book debuts in North America on December 27th, 2011.
It cannot be purchased in print, or by Kindle readers in the United States and Canada, until after that date.

Australian readers with a Kindle will find that the treasure chest of all 5 novels is available to them here on Amazon, at deliciously cheap prices. US and Canadian Kindle readers will have to be content with the first 4 in the series until December.

Leighton Gage's website

My top crime fiction reads so far for 2011

It would be nice to say this is my "top 10" or "top 15" or top "20", but numbers don't always work out so simply do they?

I do try, as I record my ratings, to put the books in a sort of ranked list but the truth is that these are all good reads, some just a little better than others.
They are, pretty well, all fairly recently published books except for THE MAN WHO WENT UP IN SMOKE.
But they also include quite a number of translated books and there's a mixture of Canadian, English, American, and Australian authors. There are police procedurals, amateur sleuths, and a couple with historical settings.
What I'm finding don't rate so highly with me at present are the cozies. They do come high in the next batch though. See all I've read this year at 2011 Reviews
There really are few duds amongst the lot.

How many of the list below have you read?

5.0, BURY YOUR DEAD, Louise Penny
5.0, A THOUSAND CUTS, Simon Lelic 
5.0, THE RULE BOOK, Rob Kitchin
4.9, THE BRUTAL TELLING, Louise Penny
4.9, BAD INTENTIONS, Karin Fossum
4.8, COLD JUSTICE, Katherine Howell
4.8, CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER, Tom Franklin
4.8, BOUND, Vanda Symon
4.8, THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE, Alan Bradley
4.7, DYING GASP, Leighton Gage 
4.7, PRIME CUT, Alan Carter 
4.7, WYATT, Garry Disher 
4.7, THE MAN WHO WENT UP IN SMOKE, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo
4.7, WHERE MEMORIES LIE, Deborah Crombie
4.6, RELICS OF THE DEAD, Ariana Franklin  
4.6, STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG, Kate Atkinson 
4.6, THREE SECONDS, Roslund & Hellstrom
4.6, SARAH'S KEY, Tatiana de Rosnay
4.6, THE JANUS STONE, Elly Griffiths

Forgotten Book: DEATH OF AN ENGLISHMAN, Magdalen Nabb

This week's Friday's Forgotten book for the meme hosted by Patti Abbott on Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books is the first in Magdalen Nabb's Marshal Guarnaccia series. It appears in my records along with 3 later books from the series in 1993.

Publisher's blurb

The debut of Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia of the Carabinieri, a Sicilian, stationed in Florence.

It is just before Christmas and the marshal wants to go South to spend the holiday with his wife and family, but first he must recover from the flu (which has left the Florentine caribinieri short-handed) and also solve a murder. A seemingly respectable retired Englishman, living in a flat on the Via Maggio near the Santa Trinita bridge, was shot in the back during the night. He was well-connected and Scotland Yard has despatched two officers to "assist" the Italians in solving the crime. But it is the marshal, a quiet observer, not an intellectual, who manages to figure out what happened, and why.

There were 14 books in the series written over a period of 27 years. The final title was published after Nabb's death in 2007 at just 60 years of age. VITA NUOVA was also suggested on this blog by Glenn Harper as a "best read" for 2008.

Magdalen Nabb's novels are all set in Florence and the surrounding Tuscan countryside. They are inspired by the place, its history, current events and by the people. There is an element of crime in all the stories. Florence does not have the high murder rate of, say, an American city like Baltimore but it does have a history of spectacular, sometimes baroque murders. Most of the novels are based on studies of real crimes. In some cases, the research involved is extensive and the collaboration of the Florence carabinieri is essential.

I read 3 others in the series (**) shortly after reading the first, so I must have enjoyed them.

Marshal Guarnaccia series
1. Death of an Englishman (1981)**
2. Death of a Dutchman (1982)
3. Death in Springtime (1983)
4. Death in Autumn (1985)**
5. The Marshal and the Murderer (1987)
6. The Marshal and the Madwoman (1988)
7. The Marshal's Own Case (1990)**
8. The Marshal Makes His Report (1991)**
9. The Marshal at the Villa Torrini (1993)
10. The Monster of Florence (1996)
11. Property of Blood (1999)
12. Some Bitter Taste (2002)
13. The Innocent (2005)
14. Vita Nuova (2008)

Just two of the titles, THE MARSHALL'S OWN CASE, and VITA NUOVA are available for Kindle.
Amazon suggests that if you like Donna Leon you'll like Magdalen Nabb,.

Magdalen Nabb's website is still available.

Review: A THOUSAND CUTS (RUPTURE), Simon Lelic

This edition, an ARC from VIKING, published as A THOUSAND CUTS in 2010
aka RUPTURE
ISBN 978-0-670-02150-5
294 pages
Source: a friend

Publisher's blurb
In the depths of a sweltering summer, teacher Samuel Szajkowski walks into his school assembly and opens fire. He kills three pupils and a colleague before turning the gun on himself.

Lucia May, the young policewoman who is assigned the case, is expected to wrap up things quickly and without fuss. The incident is a tragedy that could not have been predicted and Szajkowski, it seems clear, was a psychopath beyond help. Soon, however, Lucia becomes preoccupied with the question no one else seems to want to ask: what drove a mild-mannered, diffident school teacher to commit such a despicable crime?
Piecing together the testimonies of the teachers and children at the school, Lucia discovers an uglier, more complex picture of the months leading up to the shooting. She realises too that she has more in common with Szajkowski than she could have imagined. As the pressure to bury the case builds, she becomes determined to tell the truth about what happened, whatever the consequences . . .

My take:

I came to this with my teacher's hat on, but it could just as easily have been my  parent's hat. For either of those hats this is a horrifying tale. What turns a mild mannered history teacher turn into a lethal killer?

The blurb on the back of the edition I read begins:

It should be an open-and-shut case. Samuel Szajkowski, a recently hired history teacher, walked into a school assembly with a gun and murdered three students and a colleague before turning the weapon on himelf. It was a tragedy that could not have been predicted. Szajowski, it seems clear, was a psychopath beyond help.

From a police point of view, it looks like a case that you can wrap up quickly. Samuel Szajkowski walked into the assembly and opened fire. He is to blame for the deaths of 5 people including himself.  Detective Inspector Lucia May is given the job of interviewing the witnesses and writing up the final report.

But then Lucia begins to ask why? What pushed Samuel Szajowski over the edge? Who is really to blame? And just who is pushing her boss to get the case wrapped up?

Events like this one have happened in "real life" world wide in recent years, and A THOUSAND CUTS leads us to ask whether the investigators really ever get to the point of understanding the "why".

We know right from the beginning that there is something wrong with the culture of this school. The basic structure of the novel is transcripts of interviews by the investigators with witnesses, and the very first one is with a student who should have been at the assembly but was "down by the ponds, pissing about.."
The interview transcripts are really one-sided conversations. The reader is left to deduce the questions being asked from the actual answers. It is a very arresting narrative technique.

Detective Inspector Lucia May unearths a culture of bullying that extends throughout the entire school: student to student, student to teacher, teacher to student, and teacher to teacher. The worst part is that those who should be preventing the existence of this culture, the principal for example, don't see that as their responsibility. But even the parents don't recognise the bullying happening.

Another aspect of the whole investigation is that Lucia May is herself the victim of bullying, in her personal life, and, in particular, her workplace. It makes us ask whether this is an endemic part of the Western society, regardless of the profession.

A very thought-provoking read.

My rating: 5.0

Shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger 2010.

Shortlisted for the Galaxy National Book Awards 2010.

Longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize 2010.

Selected for Financial Times Books of the Year 2010.

Selected for New York Times notable crime books 2010.

Selected as one of Amazon’s Rising Stars 2010.

Top 20 Books of 2010 – Lovereading.co.uk.

Blog posts to check:

• EuroCrime: Guest Post Simon Lelic
• Maxine Clarke, review of A THOUSAND CUTS
• Reactions to Reading - review of A THOUSAND CUTS 

I'm counting A THOUSAND CUTS for the British Books Challenge and as a "new to me" author.

Simon Lelic's website

Crime Fiction Alphabet: N or M?, Agatha Christie

I really couldn't pass up the opportunity to point you to this title by Agatha Christie.

I haven't yet got to it on my quest to read Agatha Christie titles in order of publication, but according to my schedule, I should read it by the end of this year.

However, since choosing this as my focus for this CFA post I have seen that Gautami beat me to it, so I've changed my direction a little to focus some covers.

One of the things I find fascinating about Agatha Christie novels is the way they reflect popular fear about infiltration by outside powers.

You see that in some of her early novels when espionage and Bolshevism come to the surface, and it happens here too.
At the time when N or M? was being written, 1940-41, Britain is facing the very real threat of invasion by Hitler and fear of Nazi infiltrators is strong.

I love the way the cover on the left conveys the idea of the island fortress, and the one on the right (which I think is Dutch but I'm not sure) has the idea of surveillance by blimps. I can't quite work out why the girl is red.

The other one on the left comes from 1960 and changes the focus just a little to the quandary of deciding who the enemy agent is.

I like the other one on the right too which I found at  Mystery*File

It seems to be a seaside town map, but unfortunately I couldn't find a bigger copy of it so we could see the detail more distinctly.

Agatha Christie novels have been published so many times in different editions, it is always fascinating to see what the covers look like. What do you think of these?

 In her post Gautami uses a different cover again.

Check what others have contributed to this week's Crime Fiction Alphabet.