A collection of James Ellroy's articles on crime and his own past.

I've enjoyed Ellroy in the past but I found this unreadable. I tried it twice but abandoned it halfway through. Ellroy's writing is self-indulgent, irritating, grandiose, and full of tiresome stylistic tics.

Tom Hardy has had a very good year, starring in Mad Max: Fury Road and playing both Reggie and Ronnie Kray in Legend.

Legend loving recreates London in the Swinging Sixties when the Kray twins were not only notorious gangsters but also celebri­ties, mingling with the rich and famous in their nightclubs. Reggie is portrayed as the smarter, charming, and stable brother; Ronnie as erratic and psy­cho­pathic; both are capable of great violence. The film is narrated from beyond the grave by Reggie's wife, Frances, and con­cen­trates mostly on Reggie. Hardy is excellent as Reggie, but hard to understand as Ronnie, while Emily Browning does a fine job as the young wife who's …continue.

Burke Devore is a middle-aged middle manager at a paper mill, who's been laid off for some time. There are too many others like him and they're beating him out for the few positions in his field. In des­per­a­tion, he decides to eliminate the com­pe­ti­tion by placing a fake job ad­ver­tise­ment for others with similar skills and by killing them off.

Westlake is known for a variety of crime novels, including the light-hearted, humorous Dortmunder books. There's humor here, but in a very dark vein, and …continue.

Rowland Egerton, star of a popular antiques TV show, is found murdered in his London home. When Detective Inspector Bill Slider and his team in­ves­ti­gate, they uncover sordid secrets unknown to the British public.

This was a witty and en­ter­tain­ing police procedural, showing both the working and home lives of Slider and team.

Loosely modeled on the rise of the Han dynasty, Ken Liu's fantasy tells us of two men who rise up to challenge the emperor. Kuni Garu, the wily and wise one-time bandit, and Mata Zyndu, the warrior scion of a deposed noble clan, are friends initially but fall out. The gods are at play in the affairs of men and they take pleasure in causing trouble and strife.

I enjoyed the novel, but I disliked the pace at which Liu galloped through events.

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Joe Kurtz is marked for death after the events of Hardcase. And a concert violinist is convinced that he just saw the man who murdered his teenaged daughter 20 years earlier, who was thought dead. More mayhem.

It's 1999, the "Glimmering" is destroying the ozone layer, the seas are rising, and the world is falling apart.

I thought this was well written and the two main characters were well-drawn, but I didn't enjoy this book.

Mary Russell—Sherlock Holmes' much younger wife—in­ves­ti­gates the odd goings on in a British silent film company that's making a pirate film on location in Lisbon and Morocco in 1924. The filmmakers get more than they bargained for, as the rogues they cast as pirates seem to be real pirates.

A decent entry in this series.

In 1942, Ernest Hemingway ran a counter-espionage ring and submarine-seeking operation from Cuba. Staffed by amateurs, it was approved by the American ambassador. The narrator, Joe Lucas, is sent by J. Edgar Hoover to infiltrate Hem­ing­way's op. There seems to be a lot of espionage going on in Cuba and it looks like Hemingway is being set up for something.

Based loosely on true events, this is en­ter­tain­ing, if a tad longwinded and confusing.