I saw Terribly Happy at SIFF tonight.

Robert is a Copenhagen cop, demoted to a remote village in the bleak bogs of Jutland. The locals are clannish and do things their own way. Robert quickly finds himself coming between the man-hungry Ingerlise and her abusive husband Jørgen. She complains about Jørgen, but won't swear out a formal report. Robert is un­will­ing­ly drawn to her.

Billed as a “blackly comic thriller”, it's more of a psy­cho­log­i­cal drama. Robert's unsmiling face carries the film.

The Last Light of the Sun takes place in the Dark Ages of a parallel world. The Erlings (Vikings) raid the Cyngael (Welsh) and Anglcyn (Anglo-Saxon). A young Erling flees indentured servitude and becomes a raider, following in the footsteps of his estranged father. A Cyngael prince dies in an Erling raid and is taken by the Queen of the Fairies; his brother is drawn to another fairy; he will enter into a reluctant compact with the Anglcyn when they are …continue.

A conman publisher visits a writing circle in Chichester and gets their hopes up. Soon, he is burned to death in his cottage. Other arson-murders follow.

In the first half of the book, the story is primarily told from the viewpoint of the newest member of the writers' circle, Bob Naylor, who starts in­ves­ti­gat­ing, egged on by some of the others. In the second half, it becomes a police procedural, as seen by Detective Chief Inspector Henrietta Mallin, who takes over the case.

The Circle is a whodunnit in the classic vein, with …continue.

The district nurse is murdered in a Danish seaside resort. The police arrest the local peeping tom, a dimwitted young man. Detective-Inspector Jonas Morck has his doubts. Morck and his partner, Einarsen, are locked in a permanent good cop–bad cop routine. Eventually, Morck in his quiet, methodical, yet insightful way, will find the real killer.

Alban McGill has a strained re­la­tion­ship with his extended family, the Wopulds, maker of Empire, one of the world's best­selling games for more than a century. They are being drawn together at their remote Scottish estate, Garbadale, to decide whether to sell the company to a large American company. His cousin Sophie will be there, the one he's loved from afar for twenty years, since their affair was forcibly broken up.

Banks weaves together multiple strands of Alban's life, the torrid adolescent love affair, his mother's early …continue.

Book #5 in the Merchant Princes series, sequel to The Merchants' War.

The U.S. Government have become really pissed off with the world-walking Clan, and send a small nuke into the Gruinmarkt. It misses the clan but takes care of the new king who was waging war on them. Miriam is pregnant with a royal child and manages to parlay that into being crowned queen-widow. The con­ser­v­a­tive faction in the Clan view the nuke as a deadly insult and want revenge.

This is another heady mixture of feudal intrigue, U.S. …continue.

Wyatt is a me­te­o­rol­o­gist working with the U.S. Navy on the small Caribbean island of San Fernandez. He's convinced that Hurricane Mabel will change course and hit San Fernandez. Trouble is, he can't convince the local dictator, Serrurier, to evacuate the low-lying capital because the rebels have risen.

This is a fine early modern thriller by Bagley. Aside from the im­prob­a­bil­i­ty of an in­sur­rec­tion and a major hurricane happening si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, it's quite believable. The tension mounts as the weather worsens, people act in character, and no one has improbable talents. Wyatt is naive …continue.

Sequel to Agents of Light and Darkness.

A mysterious chanteuse's songs are to die for at an exclusive club in the Nightside: her fans are committing suicide. John Taylor in­ves­ti­gates.

En­ter­tain­ing, though the writing style is clumsy.

Book #4 in the Merchant Princes series, sequel to The Clan Corporate.

The Clan share a mutation that allows them to walk between worlds, including theirs and ours. It's made them fabulously wealthy in their feudal world, though much despised by the old nobility. The crown prince has just seized the throne and is on a witch-hunt. In our world, the US government considers them narco-terrorists and is hunting them too. Miriam, the main pro­tag­o­nist, is trapped in a recently discovered third world, a Victorian police state. And a fourth world is …continue.

General Sternwood is old, rich, and crippled, with two wanton daughters. Philip Marlowe is brought in to deal with a black­mail­er. Within hours, he is tripping over dead bodies, live dames, tough guys, and skeletons in closets.

Chandler's famously convoluted story holds up well seventy years later. His style and his stories are much imitated, but retain their freshness. Marlowe lives by his own code of honor, which keeps him going in his dirty, no-good world. He cracks wise and rarely carries a gun while he does what needs doing.

Rec­om­mend­ed.