Chris Wiegand talks to the creators of two very dissimilar detectives, both at work in Istanbul’s meanest streets.
Crime fiction aficionados know Istanbul as the beat of Cetin Ikmen, the shabby, middle-aged Turkish cop created by English novelist Barbara Nadel. A former actress who lives in the Pennines and was raised in London’s East End, her [...]
15
May
no comment
15
Jan
Editor’s Choice
Remembering the Bones, by Frances Itani, $24. Octogenarian Georgie Danforth Whitley has always noted similarities %26mdash; including their birth dates %26mdash; between herself and Queen Elizabeth, whom she privately imagines as Lilibet, a kind of parallel life-mate … (A) momentary distraction on a drive to the airport ends with Georgie’s car falling [...]
19
Dec
The Yacoubian Building, by Alaa al Aswany, translated by Humphrey Davies (Harper Perennial, %26pound;7.99)When it was built in the 1930s, the 10-storey Yacoubian building in central Cairo housed Egypt’s cr%26egrave;me de la cr%26egrave;me. By the 90s, it had become a more democratic dwelling, cutting a vertical slice through Egyptian society, with servants on the roof [...]
19
Dec
I’ve long been a fan of higher hokum as long as it’s well written. (Yes, I do still think Anne Rice’s Interview With A Vampire is a great read - and as for The Magus …) Plus, I’m always interested in crime fiction that pushes at the edges of the form. So I approached South [...]
17
Dec
Ignore the limp title of “Death of a Murderer” (Knopf, 240 pp., $23) %26#8212; it’s the only weak point in an otherwise mesmerizing literary mystery.
Rupert Thomson’s quietly devastating novel describes one night in the life of British policeman Billy Tyler, assigned to guard the body of a despised child murderer (dead of natural causes) before [...]
Copyright © 2008 Tour Novel. All Rights Reserved.