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Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood

William J. Mann

5.0 (2 Ratings) Rate It

Book

New York Times Bestseller Edgar Award winner for Best Fact Crime The Day of the Locust meets The...

David McK (3801 KP) rated Blackout in Books

Nov 3, 2021

Blackout

Simon Scarrow | 2021 | Crime

8.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

To be honest, crime fiction is not my usual genre of choice.

I also tend to find 'book club picks' to be rather off-putting; generally finding those I have previously read to be rather tedious and just not generally all that interesting (while able to admire the literary sophistication of the works).

This is both a crime fiction novel, and a 'Richard and Judy book club pick', so that would - normally - have been 2 marks against picking it up, in my books.

However, I have read - and generally quite enjoyed - most, if not all, of Simon Scarrow's other works - in particular his Cato and Macro series - so, when I saw this on a Kindle deal for something like 99p, I thought to myself 'why not?'.

And, I have to admit, I did actually quite enjoy this.

Set in 1939 Berlin just at the start of WW2, I found this to be unusual in that it told the story from the Point of View of a German criminal inspector - most WW2 novels (that I am aware of) usually feature either American or Brits as their main protagonists - who is not a member of the Nazi party: a fact that, here, is usually held against him but is also the reason he got handed the assignment as he has no links to any factions within the party.

It's both a very different time and 'headspace' than modern sensibilities; interesting to see how the man-on-the-street could have viewed the headline events of the time. As someone from Northern Ireland, there's also aspects of the novel that hit frighteningly close to home for me ...

Kudos

Haley Mathiot (9 KP) rated White Crocodile in Books

Apr 27, 2018

White Crocodile was a book that surprised me. At first I was only interested because of the idea of mine clearers. Then there was an explosion. Then I got to know the characters a little more. It was fair paced but not as fast as I’d have liked. About halfway I began to get really curious about the plot, and then it started getting fast and surprising me at every turn. From there it didn’t let go. I feel like it could have started stronger (especially considering how good the ending was). The narration was good except every once in a while a line was so quiet I could barely hear it. All in all it was a very nice listening experience for a crime novel with a really exciting surprising ending.

Kudos

Sean Farrell (9 KP) rated Burial Rites in Books

Mar 15, 2018

Burial Rites

Hannah Kent | 2014 | Fiction & Poetry

7.9

(8 Ratings)

Book Rating

An interesting book, but not as great as I had hoped. Following an convicted murderess and the family who is forced to watch over her as she awaits her execution in early 1800's Iceland, there is plenty of intrigue teased out over the course of the novel. Did she do it? If so why? If not, then who? And as she relays details of her life leading up to the crime a sense of suspense does gradually build. Aside from the main plot, it is interesting to learn about the lives of farmers in the country at that time, and all of the hardships such a life entailed. The ending felt somewhat flat however, and didn't really adequately wrap up quite everything that had been brought up throughout the book.