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
The 9th International Budapest Book Festival was bursting at the seams this year, with 600 publishers jammed into the Budapest Convention Centre from April 18-21. As some 60,000 visitors browsed 40,000 books on display, it’s no wonder that the punchy fair organizers — those being the Hungarian Publishers’ and Booksellers’ Association in partnership with the…Continue Reading
Ashcan Memories Mauvignier Talks Trash in France, Celery Stalks Italy, and Holland Peeps at Lost Souls The dustbin has popped open in France this month and rendered up Laurent Mauvignier’s elegiac second novel, Learning to Finish, which details the plight of a trash collector who announces he is leaving his wife — only to maim…Continue Reading
Crime and Punishment King Bites the Bullet, Crime Pays in New Zealand, and Carvalho’s on the Case in Spain In a somewhat bizarre development, Stephen King’s hotly downloaded e-novella Riding the Bullet has shot around the globe — in a bricks-and-mortar edition. Though hard-copy versions of the work were originally ruled out by the K-man,…Continue Reading
Tasmanian Devils Australia’s Panty Line, France’s Tranquil Madness, and the Sub-Continent’s Al Pacino As droves of Australians sashay into the pantry this month with the bestselling Marie Claire cooking title Food Fast, the rest of the literate world down under has been taking a peek under the Visible Panty Line with the newest from Australia’s…Continue Reading
