He Who Laughs Last Fontanarrosa Grabs Guffaws, Shades of Scorsese in Italy, And Germany’s Answer to Oprah Pull up a barstool and lend an ear to the simply Seinfeldian comic strip artist and author Roberto Fontanarrosa, whose latest book, You’ll Never Believe Me, is stirring up all manner of giggles and guffaws in Argentina this…Continue Reading
It’s a Wonderful Double Life Hot-Buttered in Finland, Dreyfus Redux in Israel, and Watusi on the Brain in Spain Nouveau-riche restaurateur Brede Ziegler is murdered not once, but twice in No Echo, the sixth in a series of shrewdly executed detective novels from megastar Norwegian author Anne Holt. After Ziegler turns up hot-buttered and trussed,…Continue Reading
Damsels In Distress Calmel in Aquitaine, Hermann Does Damascus, And Norway’s Queen of Crime Druids, troubadours, wenches, and the golden-haired, green-eyed Duchess of Aquitaine make for a rambunctious menagerie who all wind up in Eleanor’s Bed, a first novel that’s had ladies-in-waiting sighing all over France. This medieval coming-of-age story from Mireille Calmel unfolds in…Continue Reading
Duck and Cover Fowl Play in Argentina, Penelope Unbound in Spain, And Birdsell’s Back in Canada Argentina’s “official historians” are quacking away over the latest provocation from historical novelist María Esther de Miguel, titled The Palace of the Ducks. The book carries forward the author’s “generally transgressive” history of Buenos Aires and adapts a detective…Continue Reading
