Blacksad: A Silent Hell

by Juan Díaz Canales (story) and Juanjo Guarnido (art), Katie LaBarbera (translation), Tom Orzechowski and Louis Bualis (lettering), 110 pages

Noir takes a Southern twist as feline detective John Blacksad heads down to New Orleans to look for a missing blues musician.

For more details, please see my full review on NoFlyingNoTights.com!

The Maltese Falcon

by Dashiell Hammett 217p.

This was the first noir I had read, but it seemed like a definitive noir detective story. There were interesting characters and descriptions. It had a very straightforward style that made it easy to read with only a few dated kind of words. It did not end how I thought it would end.

Blacksad

by Juan Díaz Canales (story) and Juanjo Guarnido (art) and Studio Cutie (lettering), 181 pages

Private eye John Blacksad is one cool cat. Seriously.

Anthropomorphic noir. Awesome sauce.

For more details about this collection of the first three arcs (Somewhere in the Shadows, Arctic Nation, Red Soul) in a French comic set in Cold War era America and created by a pair of Spaniards, please see my full review on NoFlyingNoTights.

Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim: 1)

by Richard Kadrey
(2009 | 388 p)

I've long considered myself to be a fan of urban fantasy. But I'm only now learning that there are actually two faces to the genre. You have the bohemian magical big city life (think de Lint's Newford series) and then you have the gritty, noir stuff. Sandman Slim clearly belongs in the latter. I wasn't sure what to make of this dark side of urban fantasy at first. So, quite rationally, I denied its existence for as long as possible. After finally sucking it up and reading a few of them I have to admit that this just might be my new guilty pleasure (literary-wise, at least).

Wil Wheaton recommended that I give Sandman Slim a try. (I like to say it like that because it makes it sound like Wil and I are tight when, in actuality, I'm just one of the thousands who stalks him on the interwebs.) The Wheaton raved about the Sandman Slim series and I thought to give it a go. And, I must say, so far Mr. Wheaton is one for one when it comes to book recommendations. Good job, sir.

The star of the story is Stark, a talented young magician who was very unfairly kidnapped by hellions. Stark survived eleven years in hell, serving as a tortured pet for Lucifer's top generals. Being mortal he shouldn't have made it a day "downtown," but it turns out that Stark is really tough to kill. He fights his way back to the surface to avenge the murder of his girlfriend. Only, as it turns out, revenge is never as simple as it should be.

This story is fast-paced and full of dark humor. Be sure to read it if you like that sort of thing.

Mygale

by Thierry Jonquet
translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith
129 pgs

I have a thing for books that have been made into movies. So, when I overheard a conversation about the movie based on Mygale, I had to read it. Though the movie is very controversial and has mixed reviews, I wish I hadn't known about the premise before I read this book. The mystery and twist were ruined by my prior knowledge, so I won't reveal much in this post.

Richard Lafarque is a brilliant and deeply disturbed plastic surgeon. Though his professional life is flourishing, his personal life is quite sinister. His daughter is in a mental institution and he has trouble dealing with it. He keeps his female companion locked up and only brings her out to parade her around or abuse her in unspeakable ways. As the story progresses, clues about how he became the way he is, why he treats his companion this way and why his daughter is in an institution are revealed. This noir thriller with a psycho-sexual edge is twisted enough to keep you interested and guessing until the last pages.

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

Oh, man.  I so wanted to like this book.  I mean, we picked it for The Big Read next year, right?  And I get that Dashiell Hammett is like the king of noir and Sam Spade is the godfather of all hard-boiled detectives but I wasn't really excited about the writing.  It was pretty forced in the beginning and I did not love the descriptive passages.  I like mysteries that give you everything you need to solve the problem rather than keeping things from you so the author is the only one who gets to solve the crime.  That's lazy.  I hope people will like it and by the end, I didn't hate it.  Not much of an endorsement, is it?! Oh well, here we go.....
Kim F
217 pp

"The Maltese Falcon" by Dashiell Hammett

217 pages

The mysterious, alluring woman who can't necessarily be trusted. The search for an exotic, expensive item that people will kill for, literally. The detective who has strong morals but will bend the law to find the truth. All of these familiar elements of hardboiled detective novels began in 1930 with "The Maltese Falcon," which is the Big Read selection for 2012.

The story begins with detective Sam Spade and his partner, Miles Archer, receiving a visit from an attractive young woman who calls herself Miss Wonderly. She asks the detectives to follow her sister's new husband, whom she believes to be dangerous. This leads to a murder, and Spade discovers that Miss Wonderly is not who she says she is. Her name is actually Brigid O'Shaughnessy, and she's involved in the hunt for a legendary jewel-encrusted falcon statue that is said to have been a gift from the island of Malta to the King of Spain several hundred years ago, but was lost on ship in transit and has been searched for ever since. Spade soon finds himself tangled up with the network of treasure seekers who will stop at nothing to find the falcon.

I really got sucked into this book! The action begins right away and is nonstop until the end. The author tells a lot of the story and develops the characters by using details to create a mental picture, and all of the details are relevant. There aren't any insignificant descriptions cluttering things up. Hammett's storytelling made the story come alive for me, and there are lots of twists in the plot that kept me interested. I'll definitely be checking out some of his other novels and short stories.

Storm Front

by Jim Butcher, 322 pages.

I'm one of those people who normally has to read a series in order. Desperate for an audiobook to listen to on the drive home, I picked up Jim Butcher's latest, Changes. I liked the blend of magical adventure and snarky humor so much that I had to go back to the beginning of The Dresden Files.

Storm Front introduces us Harry Dresden, a somewhat shabby wizard-for-hire on the mean streets of Chicago. He's a magical consultant for the Chicago PD. Someone in the city has used the blackest of magic to murder several people, and Harry could be the next victim. Throw in an urbane crime boss, pizza loving faeries and a magical enforcer with a sword brighter than his intellect and there is nary a dull moment.

Though not as funny as Changes, Storm Front is a good introduction to Harry Dresden and the varied cast of characters who inhabit his dark and dangerous world.