Quick recap of what I've been reading:
Le Carre's first published novel. It's a Smiley book, but it's more of a murder mystery than a classic spy novel. I liked it quite a bit, especially the first half. It slogs a little in the second but it's buoyed along by the excellent characterization of Smiley.
One of the nice things about JDM is that some of his books end happily and some do not. It keeps you on your toes as a reader. This is a spoiler (but no one reads MacDonald any more besides me), but this one does not end happily, and this book kind of gutted me. JDM made me really love a character and then dispatched that particular character in a brutal manner. Clearly, I'm harboring a little bit of a grudge here, but this was still a great read.
This Donald Hamilton novel is the first in the series of Matt Helm books. Thought I'd give it a try. The first few chapters are great but I pretty much lost interest as I went along. It was hard to feel any sympathy and/or interest for the main character, a brutal ex-assassin brought back into the game.
I pulled this one off the bookshelf, pretty convinced I'd already read it, but I hadn't. This has got to be the last McGee I haven't read. It was good, an incredibly brutal story in which McGee stumbles into the murderous end of a heist-gone-wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment