It’s as if the lead character of a madcap Hunter S Thompson novel has stumbled into a Graham Greene thriller – that’s the best way I can hope to set the scene for Rafael Bernal’s 1969 cult classic The Mongolian Conspiracy.
Tag: pushkin vertigo
Margaret Millar’s lost crime novel Vanish in an Instant has returned and it’s a killer read
What I love about Margaret Millar is that you know she’s playing with you but she only lets you get close enough to see the shadows of her deception.
Book review: Frédéric Dard’s vintage noir The Gravediggers’ Bread is begging to be exhumed
Dard is brilliant at describing the unspoken tones of noir – the creeping dread, the red-blooded lust and the vein-bulging tell-tale signs of sin’s smothering aftermaths.
Why you should read You Were Never Really Here in one sitting
And when the narrative stops on a dime after an ice-cold 97 pages, you’re left wanting more.
The jury is in for Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s The Execution of Justice
The case is open and shut. But when the incarcerated murderer hires a disreputable lawyer to investigate the possibility that it was someone else, the case inverts into a claustrophobic entanglement of red tape, sin and checkered pasts.
Unlocking a riveting Japanese mystery: Masako Togawa’s The Master Key review
Themes of security, honour, obligation and voyeurism converge into something enticing and engaging under Togawa’s pen.
