Kinky philosophy

Kinky Friedman, that is. I read 'Greenwich Killing Time' over the weekend, the first in the detective series that stars Kinky Friedman as the private investigator. I enjoyed the book, especially his observations and humour. Here are a few quotes from the book.

"There are no good lawyers. There maybe lady wrestlers and Catholic universities. There maybe military intelligence. But a good lawyer is a contradiction in terms. When you needed one, you needed one, however, and I needed one."

"Some people wake to the sound of church bells. Some people wake to the sound of birds. But in New York City you wake to the sound of garbage trucks. Place is still filthy, of course. Can't have everything."

"Rain was a lot like vomiting. One of the few great equalisers in life. It soaked society dames and bag ladies. People and pigeons. Cops and robbers."

"Of course, most people didn't know what they were missing. And they sure didn't know what they weren't missing. Nor did they know that there was any difference between the two."

"Rather grudinglythe guy called the city editor, and before you could have cooked a two minute egg, the waves were parting, the wheels were turning, the metaphors were mixing, and the two of us were shaking hands with Virgil and following him down into the circles of Hell."

Lazy Sunday Service

I see that Google are starting to rein in their free API service for Google Maps. Developers using the API will start paying for the service after 25,000 map loads per day ($4 per 1000 views). We use the API on one of our projects, so this is something I'll be keeping an eye on. It's not going to affect usage in the short term for the users of sites that employ Google Maps mash-ups, though it will start to affect high volume providers of such mash-ups. Clearly, the strategy here has been to get people hooked and then introduce charging. It'll be interesting to see if the map load limit is gradually reduced over time and if Google roll out the charging model to its other services. It wouldn't surprise me if that were the case.

My posts this week:
Six to choose from ...
Review of The Savage Altar by Asa Larsson
Activity status of unfinished estates 2011
Intense, urgent and a little explosive
Review of The Bloody Meadow by William Ryan
You'd Better Sit Down

You'd better sit down

'I think you'd better sit down,' Mary said.

Kenny dropped into an armchair. 'I take it this is bad news.'

'It depends on how you look at it.'

'Bad then. Go on.'

'I'm pregnant.'

'You're ... how the hell did that happen?'

'How do you think?'

'But you're forty five!'

'And still fertile. And so are you. Two bottles of wine and no protection and ...'

'Jesus.'

'Is that all you've got to say? Jesus?'

'What do you want me to say?'

'I don't know? That you're over the moon. That it'll be okay.'

'I ... a baby ... Jesus.'


A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of The Bloody Meadow by William Ryan (Mantle, 2011)

Militia captain Alexei Korolev is still living with the ghosts of his last major case when Colonel Rodinov of the NKVD security service asks him to investigate the supposed suicide of a young woman, Maria Lenskaya. He has little choice in the matter since the directive has come the Commissar for State Security, with whom she was having an affair. With good reason, Korolev fears political cases; this is after all the period of Stalin's great purges, and a wrong step by Korolev will have knock on consequences for his family and colleagues. Moreover, the young woman died on the film set of The Bloody Meadow that is being shot at an agricultural college near to Odessa on the Black Sea. A thousand kilometres outside of Korolov's usual patch of operations, and in the heart of Ukrainian resentment at the ravages of collectivisation, his presence as investigating officer is hardly welcome. Quickly establishing that Lenskaya was, in fact, murdered he starts to try and determine who killed her. The case though is not straightforward and seems to hint at a conspiracy against the state.

I thoroughly enjoyed Ryan debut novel, The Holy Thief, so I had high expectations for The Bloody Meadow. It's a good read, but doesn't quite match the quality of the first book in the series. The Holy Thief had a claustrophobic and tense atmosphere, with a very tight plot. The Bloody Meadow is more expansive, felt a little looser in the plotting, and Korolov as a character is little developed in terms of backstory and personal life. And because there is a lot going on and there is a big cast, the development of characters in general is a little bit too much surface and not enough depth. There are also some unlikely coincidences, which enable a couple of characters from the first book to appear in the second. That all said, the book does have historical richness and The Bloody Meadow is an enjoyable read, and if I hadn't read the first book I'm sure this review would read more positively than it might seem. To be clear then, I am still recommending it as worthy of a look and my sense is that this is a series with a lot of potential. Personally, I hope the third book is set back in Moscow, allowing a further engagement with the militia and pathology characters from the first book. Regardless of setting, I plan to read it.

Intense, urgent and a little explosive ...

The Irish Times today has a piece penned by Declan Burke entitled 'Flash fiction: Intense, urgent and a little explosive'. He very kindly included one of my drabbles - Blood Pumping Quick - as well as a piece by Nuala Ni Chonchuir. I am, of course, delighted with this! For anyone interested in penning a piece of flash fiction, The Irish Times has issued a challenge seeking flash fiction stories of no more than 500 words. They'll publish the best of them. There are no parameters re. genre or focus. There's no set date but stories should be submitted to flashfiction@irishtimes.com. At only 500 words, you've nothing to lose by giving it a go.

Review of The Savage Altar by Asa Larsson (Penguin, 2005)

In Kiruna, a small town in northern Sweden, a young man is stabbed to death in a church. He'd previously died years before, but had been revived. His story received global coverage through his book and preaching and led to the three main churches in the town coming together to form a much larger entity. The victim's sister, Sanna, discovers the body and very quickly becomes the main suspect for his brutal murder. Desperate, she calls her former friend Rebecka Martinsson, who left the town and the church in disgrace years previously and is now a tax lawyer in Stockholm. Reluctantly, Martinsson returns and working with and against the local police tries to piece together what happened, at the same time discovering what had occurred in the town in her absence. What she finds is a conspiracy of silence and threats. And the nearer she edges towards the truth, the more danger she finds herself in.

The Savage Altar is the first novel by Asa Larsson and won Sweden's best first crime novel award. The book has a police procedural feel to, and it does have that side to it, but it primarily focuses on Martinsson's efforts without ever really straying into legal thriller territory. Rebecka Martinsson is a feisty character, and is easy to identify with. Indeed, the characterisation throughout the book is strong, with a good range of supporting cast and I felt the pregnant cop had a lot of potential to front her own series. The story also has a good sense of place, transporting the reader to the frozen landscape of northern Sweden. One feature of the storytelling I particularly liked was the change in perspective between characters, which could alter mid-scene as one character left. The story itself was relatively straightforward. The plot was nicely constructed, though it has no real twists (which was fine by me), andits tension points were a little flat because they were well telegraphed. Overall, a solid start to a series, which I intend to follow based on this outing.

Six to choose from ...

The shortlists for the Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards 2011 have been announced. The shortlist for the Ireland AM Crime Fiction Award is:

A Death in Summer by Benjamin Black
Absolute Zero Cool by Declan Burke
The Reckoning by Jane Casey
Bloodland by Alan Glynn
Taboo by Casey Hill
The Bloody Meadow by William Ryan

You can vote for your favourite book by clicking on the image above. I've only read Absolute Zero Cool and Bloodland, so far. I've made a start on The Bloody Meadow. I'm a little surprised that Gene Kerrigan's The Rage didn't make the shortlist, but as Declan Burke notes over on Crime Always Pays, 2011 was a bumper year of quality Irish crime fiction.