Tag Archives: Roger Smith

My 5 Best of 2012 (plus 3 spares)

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It’s that time of year, I guess; when as an occasional reviewer of books I should recount my faves of the year. 5 seems to be the magic number this time around, rather than 10, so I’ll give you mine (with three ‘spares’ thrown in – because the difference between all these books is for the most part so bloody tight). Of course that doesn’t mean they were written and released this year; just that I read them in 2012. They are listed in order of preference except for the spares:

5) City of Heretics by Heath Lowrance
I simply had to have something of Heath’s in this list, because I’ve enjoyed his work so much. I polished off Dig Ten Graves and The Bastard Hand in record time, and both were on the longlist of my faves of the year, with the final decision about which I liked the most being a tricky one. However, thankfully, the appearance of City of Heretics took the decision out of my hands by being so damn good. It’s the tale of an ageing con who’s looking to get some payback on the people who betrayed him, only to get sidetracked by a search for a serial killer, which leads him to a shadowy organisation that uses killers to further its warped ideology. It’s as tight and tuned as a drum skin and the lead character Crowe is one of the finest I’ve come across this year. If you haven’t read it yet you should – it’s a damn fine read.

4) Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock
I’ve read some excellent short story collections this year, but this one took the prize. Alternating between ugly and beautiful, with an eye for spare prose and dark finales that would make Gordon Lish scream and shout with joy, Knockemstiff is a stunning performance with the kind of writing that makes most writers green with envy (I know I am!). The story Honolulu is probably the most perfect short I’ve read this year. Brilliant.

3) Wolf Tickets by Ray Banks
Bank’s thriller about two friends searching for some missing money (and a cool leather jacket) was one of the treats of the year, and certainly the most entertaining. I loved the pace, the story, and most of all I loved the voices of the two lead characters (Banks gives them alternating chapters to tell the tale). It’s a storming read by one of the finest British crime writers around. I polished it off in a day and was sad when it was done.

2) Capture by Roger Smith
Roger Smith’s Dust Devils was probably the best thing I read last year (and its villain Inja Mazibuko was easily the finest bad guy I’d come across in years), so I was eagerly looking forward to the follow-up. Obviously I wondered whether Smith could create another book quite as good as that noir masterwork – but I needn’t have worried. Smith’s pitch-black follow-up, Capture, a tale of murder, obsession, voyeurism, and psychological cruelty, is a stonking noir that starts low-key but gradually works towards as tense a climax as its possible to get. I’m still amazed at how Smith manages to make us care about characters as dark and practically irredeemable as these but somehow he does; and in Vernon Saul he has created easily the best villain I’ve read in recent memory (somehow even better than Mazibuko). If you’ve not read it yet, download it today. You won’t be sorry – it’s masterful.

1) The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
This really is the surprise of the year, for me. It’s not that I don’t read modern literary fiction, it’s just that I don’t read it that often (and by modern, I mean the last 20 years). Half the time the hype just leads to disappointment – the discovery that behind all the pretty prose is a story that probably could have been told faster, more economically and truthfully by ‘lesser’ genre writers. However, Barnes’ tale of friendship, memory, and the secrets that we keep really was a superb performance – the kind of tale that only a literary writer could do justice. The prose was economical but dense, the storytelling masterful, and the ending in its own quiet, unflashy way was one of the most powerful I’ve come across in quite some time. As you might be able to tell, I loved it.

THE SPARES:

All The Young Warriors by Anthony Neil Smith
A fine thriller from a writer who seems to improve with every book. This really was in the the top 5 until Julian Barnes sneaked in at the very last moment. I have a feeling that if Smith’s next Billy Lafitte book is an improvement on this one then I might need to keep the top spot free for that!

Beautiful, Naked & Dead by Josh Stallings
To be honest, I’ve read so much good stuff this year that choosing a top 5 has been a major bloody pain. And this excellent detective thriller by Josh Stallings is, like Warriors, really only out of the top 5 by a tiny, tiny margin. Superb stuff, and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into the sequel Out There Bad.

Bullets and Fire by Joe R Lansdale
Lansdale’s novelette (and even novelette might be pushing it in terms of length), is a revenge thriller with the kind of jet propelled storytelling that few writers possess. Ultra-violent but with a heart (even if it happens to be so twisted and diseased it’s gone black). In terms of pure narrative entertainment this is second only to Wolf Tickets.

Adios, this is probably the last you’ll hear from my blog till after Christmas, so have a happy and safe holiday season!

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Review: Capture by Roger Smith

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Last year I was lucky enough to discover the writing of Roger Smith when I bought Dust Devils, which was one of my favourite novels of 2011. It was dark, fast-paced, superbly written and featured, in the character of Inja Mazibuko, one of the most despicable villains ever to grace the pages of a crime thriller.

Then I read Ishmael Toffee, his excellent novella about a reformed gang killer who is forced to go back to his old ways when he discovers that the daughter of a man he works for is being sexually abused. Like Dust Devils it was dark stuff, but treated the thorny subject of child abuse with a lot of sensitivity.

In short, he’s become one of my favourite authors in the space of two books. I have Mixed Blood and Wake Up Dead in my collection, but I just need to get around to having the time to read them.

However, I have just recently finished Capture, his latest and, in my humble opinion, greatest work. The story begins with a former policeman now rent-a-cop, Vernon Saul, watching a young child wander into the sea where she drowns. He has the chance to save her but chooses not to because he sees no benefit in it. The parents, Nick and Caroline Exley, are being too selfish to notice and when they do notice it is too late. Despite this, Vernon Saul puts on a show of trying to save their daughter’s life, because this is where he sees a benefit, due to the fact that it makes him look like a hero. He uses the child’s death to inveigle his way into Nick’s affections and convince the wealthy motion capture system designer to let him help in various ways. Too consumed by grief, Nick let’s Vernon help in the belief that he is a good man. Of course, Saul is nothing of the sort. He is the kind of man who loves to be in control of people. He is damaged by events in his childhood (sexual abuse and mutilation by his father) and can only really get enjoyment by making people dance to his tune,  especially when they suffer. Slowly but surely, and with great glee, Vernon turns life Exley’s life into a nightmare, leading him down a dark path that includes murder. As Nick realises that his life is spiraling out of control he tries to cut Vernon out but that just makes things worse…

Capture is the best thriller I’ve read this year, thus far. It has a complex character driven plot that interweaves numerous lives and deaths into its tapestry. Smith’s lean, muscular prose paints plenty of unforgettable images with an economy that is a joy to behold. It has lots of incident for those who like a body count. Also, it isn’t afraid to give the characters flaws and make them seem selfish or petty or even nasty despite the fact that they are fundamentally decent. However, its trump card is the character of Vernon Saul, a villain so Machiavellian that one is surprised that he doesn’t twist himself inside-out. He’s a murderer, a manipulator, a parasite, and also very human – a monster created by tragedy rather than a two-dimensional uber-criminal. Personally, I think the key to Roger Smith’s success is that he writes villains better than anybody else out there, and Vernon Saul is arguably his finest, even better than Inja Mazibuko, which takes some doing.

If you’ve not read any Roger Smith before you’ll be in for a real treat once you’ve loaded this into your Kindle . Capture is an excellent read by an excellent writer at the top of his form. Like all great thrillers, it grips from the first page and cranks the tension up until it reaches breaking point, particularly the finale, which left my nails pretty well shredded from biting them too much.

In all honesty, if I read better crime thriller this year then it will seriously have to be really bloody amazing.

It’s that good.

Review – Ishmael Toffee by Roger Smith

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One of my real pleasures in life is finding a new author (new to me, that is) whose work I enjoy as much as the old masters. Discovering the novels of South African author Roger Smith was just one of those occasions. Dust Devils was the easily one of the finest books I read during 2011 (not an easy feat, considering I polished off quite a few novels that year), and it was definitely one of those that stayed with me long after I’d finished the final page.

So once I knew that his latest, Ishmael Toffee, was available on Kindle I decided to download it asap. Let’s just say it’s not a decision I regretted.

The story involves an ex-gang killer Ishmael Toffee who has murdered more men with a knife than he cares to remember, but has since lost the appetite for killing. Whilst in prison, he discovers that he is good at something else other than killing – gardening, which comes in handy when he is released. Once out of prison, he becomes a gardener for a rich white lawyer and strikes up an unlikely friendship with the man’s young daughter, who treats Ishmael as a human being rather than as a prisoner. When Ishmael discovers that the girl is being abused by her father, he decides to go on the run with her and get justice through the system. But when that fails, he realises that he has to go back to the knife…

Ishmael Toffee introduces and humanizes a character who in the wrong hands could have come off as a real piece of shit. He’s a villain who has realised that his previous existence is no longer what he wants and chooses the quiet life instead and turns himself into a regular human being. He becomes a hero the moment he chooses to help a girl who can’t help herself, and makes us root for him. And he becomes tragic when he sees that the South African system is weighted in the favour of rich white men and that the one thing he wanted to avoid is the only thing that can save the girl…

Ishmael Toffee is another superb piece of writing from an author who is fast establishing himself as one of the best around. It is beautifully paced, covers a dark topic with a certain amount of sensitivity and is populated with fully rounded human beings. It is a cracking read and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

And Falling, the free short story at the end, is a cracker, too. Another direct hit for Roger Smith!

Potted book reviews – part 2

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Whilst in Thailand recently I did quite a lot of reading. Here are a few reviews of books that I hadn’t read previously. Continued from part 1 of last week.

Dust Devils by Roger Smith
Dust Devils is the first work I have read by Roger Smith, but I guarantee you that it won’t be the last. Set in South Africa; it involves a journalist being framed for a murder he didn’t commit; a truly vicious killer who actually commits the murder (in addition to many others); the father of the journalist, a former soldier-for-hire, and a fairly vicious killer himself, who wants to repent for his past sins; in addition to several other character storylines. I don’t really want to give too much away, because if I do it will spoil the pleasure of reading what I think is one of the finest novels I’ve read in any genre this year. The characters are all beautifully honed by Smith’s pared down but incisive prose; and in Inja Mazibuko he has created one of the finest villains that I have come across in recent memory. Things you might expect to happen between characters (especially if we were working with Hollywood cliches) don’t happen, partly because Smith gives his character’s real motivations rather than the kind that are used simply to propel plot. Dust Devils crackles along quickly and, despite a fairly complicated set of storylines and plot strands, never once loses its footing. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Under the Bright Lights by Daniel Woodrell
When a black businessman and political hotshot is murdered in his home, Detective Rene Shade is ordered to investigate it as a burglary/homicide, rather than stir up racial unrest in the fictional city of St Bruno, Louisiana. But Shade isn’t one to do as he’s told, so sets out to solve the case. The killing of a porn theater leads Shade to believe that the two incidents might be linked. Shade’s investigation is helped and hindered by various characters including his boss, who kowtows to politicians who don’t want the case to be solved,  a cynical and overweight partner, and his two brothers, one a lawyer concerned with his own political career, and the other the owner of a local bar, which also happens to be a stamping ground for criminal types – several of whom are involved in the case in one way or another. As things progress and bodies start to pile up, the chase leads Shade to a final showdown in the Bayou. UTBL is the first of the Rene Shade trilogy of novels that kicked off Woodrell’s career. It is superbly written and tightly plotted, though lacks the poetic language of his later work A Winter’s Bone. The relationships between the characters seem real and, despite being fictional, St Bruno seems like a character in itself. It is a work of real quality and comes highly recommended.