Sunday Smatterings, and then a Hiatus

Janet Maslin rightly reviews new thrillers by Harlan Coben and Linwood Barclay in tandem, since both cover a lot of the same ground with varying degrees of success (I haven’t read CAUGHT yet, so I can’t judge, but I differ from Maslin’s POV on NEVER LOOK AWAY in that David Harwood, to my mind, is just shy of likeable, and thus more realistic as guy caught in serious trouble.)

Oline Cogdill also reviews CAUGHT for the Sun-Sentinel.

Marilyn Stasio opines on new crime novels by Walter Mosley, Philip Kerr, Denise Mina and Cornelia Read in the NYTBR.

Tom Nolan sings the praises of Kelli Stanley’s CITY OF DRAGONS in the SF Chronicle.

In the Boston Globe, Hallie Ephron has her say on recent crime fiction by Walter Mosley, Linda Fairstein and Cara Black.

Katherine Dunn extols the virtues of Alafair Burke’s latest thriller 212 in the Oregonian.

The Times of London (which will go behind a paywall in June, so bye bye linkable crime fiction coverage at that time) has a number of goodies this weekend: John Dugdale rounds up thrillers by Lee Child, Matt Beynon Rees, Peter Temple, Joan Brady, MR Hall and Joseph Kanon, while Marcel Berlins has his say on new crime fiction by Walter Mosley, Brian McGilloway, and Juli Zeh, whose book is seriously fantastically awesome.

Helen Rumbelow’s critical view of Barry Forshaw’s insta-biography of Stieg Larsson has a great deal of care and analysis, though I gather she didn’t really know the book was conceived, written and published in a manner of months. There is a substantive, exhaustive, Blake Bailey-style biography of Larsson to be written, and perhaps the one awaiting translation into English might be that one.

The debut crime writer known as Chevy Stevens – though I must admit, I prefer her real name, Rene Unischewski, which is messier and thus more real-sounding – has indeed written a very good and and creepy thriller with one hell of a late-act twist. STILL MISSING won’t be out until July, but the G&M’s John Barber has pretty much anointed it the Big Summer Read (you know, for those who won’t have read or want to read THE PASSAGE by Justin Cronin…)

Mike Hodges, the director of GET CARTER and CROUPIER, has turned to writing novels at the age of 77. He explains why to the Times of London.

David Corbett fills Rege Behe on the details of his new novel, DO THEY KNOW I’M RUNNING?

When I got a copy of William L. Gresham’s NIGHTMARE ALLEY, my first thought was, “what’s Richard Rayner going to write about it?” Now I have my answer.

Otto Penzler is putting up the British Espionage and Thriller Fiction portion of his substantial first edition library for auction at Swann Galleries starting April 8.

Christopher Sorrentino writes of his father, the writer Gilbert Sorrentino, and the difficult task of finishing the elder’s last novel, THE ABYSS OF HUMAN ILLUSION.

Jim Crace’s next book will be his last.

And finally, Passover plus the ever-increasing freelance workload means I should accept the obvious, which is that Confessions is an occasional, more often sporadic, pursuit these days, and probably for the forseeable future.