Thursday Revue
It’s that time of the week again, Readers.
The time for you to calculate pi by throwing hot dogs?
No, sillies. Time for the Thursday Revue! I’ve been finishing about a book a day, and you’re going to suffer enjoy it right along with me.
I just finished Philip Kerr’s Hitler’s Peace. It’s not a Bernie Gunther novel, but it deals with some of the same themes–World War II, Germany, espionage, and general governmental naughtiness. The joy here is in Kerr’s writing, as smooth as a satin dress despite his tendency to info-dump in dialogue. But then, when you’re putting words in the mouths of people like Roosevelt and Hitler (both of whom have supporting roles in this book) I guess info-dump is the least of your worries as a writer.
The basic premise is this: Kerr’s archetypical hero is a German-American philosopher called upon to serve his country in numerous ways, beginning with a simple translation and putting together a report on a massacre on the Eastern Front. He ends up getting sucked into high-level diplomacy, which never ends well for any peon. Watching the main character’s life fall apart as he witnesses history in the making is one of the many joys of Kerr’s writing. He still does Raymond Chandler-esque disillusionment better than almost anyone else. I was highly satisfied and plan to go on another Kerr binge as soon as my local library cooperates.
I will move on from Kerr to Jim Butcher, for reasons that will be clear in a moment. I finished Fool Moon, the second in the Harry Dresden series. Butcher is a very good writer, and I love the worldbuilding. I absolutely adore Harry Dresden. I love the world he inhabits, and I love the laws of magic set out in his world. Butcher puts together a rip-roaring good tale, subverting fantasy conventions in general (through the whole series) and werewolf conventions in particular (in this particular book).
My only teensy-tiny problem with Harry is that he’s codependent with Murph, who I want to strangle. How many times is that woman going to accuse Harry of holding out on her, threaten to arrest him, and refuse to listen to him? I realize the fact that I’m so firmly on Harry’s side and so bloody angry at Murph means that Butcher’s done his job as an author. I care about what happens to Harry and I take his side in any disagreement he has with the magical cops (is it just me who thinks the White Council is just a tad two-dimensional?) or the regular cops. I realize a certain amount of tension and misunderstanding is useful for the story and pushes everything along, but jeez. When I start rolling my eyes at how dense everyone else is and how wonderfully smart Harry is, we’re getting perilously close to me setting the book down despite the marvelous worldbuilding and the quite frankly masterful use of language.
Huh. I just realized I’ve said nothing about the PLOT. Silly me. Harry is called in to work on a murder case. Only it’s no ordinary murder case. Someone is managing to get killed each time there’s a full moon. And then Harry finds out how many different kinds of werewolves there are, and things get really interesting. Add a healthy dose of angst about Nobody Trusting Harry and a few teasers about our favorite wizard’s past (what is the deal with his ex-girlfriend, anyway?) and you have yourself a fine, enjoyable time and a helluva book.
I also just finished Arturo Perez-Reverte’s Purity of Blood, the second in the Captain Alatriste series. We all know how much I love me some Perez-Reverte; he writes in Spanish but has marvelous translators. I think he’s the only man in the past decade who can write true female characters; I haven’t seen his like among living writers in that regard. It’s almost a shame the Alatriste books have little to no female main characters. But it doesn’t detract. Oh, no. It certainly does not.
For Perez-Reverte has managed to bring to life Spain under the Hapsburgs. He’s managed to make cloak and dagger dirty, sweaty, and just like a noir morality play. I’m in love with Bernie Gunther and more than passing fond of Harry Dresden (I am literarily promiscuous, you could say) but I would SO marry Captain Alatriste and feed him bonbons and protect him from the Inquisition and that nasty assassin Malatesta.
The story goes like this: it’s Spain, and it’s dangerous. Captain Alatriste is considering going off to war again, since Madrid is getting a little hot for him in the aftermath of the last book. His faithful narrator Inigo Balboa, a 13-year-old boy, loves his master and father-figure, and hopes he will not go. Then a friend–because the Captain does have friends–asks him for some help. And it just gets worse from there.
You see, there’s a family whose daughter has been kidnapped and placed in a convent against her will. This convent is the private playground for a few priests in royal favor, who have turned it into a kinky Loudon without the Father Grandier part. Normally this damsel’s father and two brothers would take care of this in short order, they being noble and this being Spain. But things are sticky–because the priest running the whole bordellonunnery (very Hamlet of me, I know) threatens to reveal that the family has a Jewish branch. And in a Spain under the Hapsburgs, menaced by the Inquisition, that’s a sentence of torture and death.
Of course the Captain commits to freeing the damsel. Unfortunately, there’s more going on here than just a simple rescue. In short order Alatriste is running for his life and Inigo is in the hands of the Inquisition. And is the fair damsel rescued? Can Alatriste save his ward from the stake? Just what game is being played here anyway?
Ah, dear Reader, read and find out. If you consider shelling out hard-earned cash for hours of reading enjoyment, Perez-Reverte is your man. Purity of Blood is witty, sharply inventive, convention-skewering, fantastically written, and sharp and shiny as Toledo steel. It’s also out in trade paper now, which is my favorite way to buy Perez-Reverte. (All the books in my PR set match. I am SUCH a dork.) There’s even better news: there’s three more Alatristes coming. And I’ve heard scuttlebutt that Viggo Mortensen will play Alatriste in an upcoming Spanish movie. Which I will probably go see four or five times if it ever hits US theaters, since I love me some Viggo and I adore me some Alatriste. (There’s a long-winded but full-of-Viggo-goodness trailer here.)
And there you have it, dear Readers. The Thursday Revue. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Now I have to go kill me a demon or two in that fifth book. Oh, by the way…
The Devil in Love
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41,893 / 100,000
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In case you’ve been wondering how I’ve been spending my time…
