Toby Ball

Interessante Prämisse: ein Noir-Krimi in einer fiktiven Metropole der 1930er (New York läßt grüßen). Korrupte Politiker, Bandenkriege, Bomben und Anarchisten. Mittendrin ein investigativer Journalist, eine bildhübsche Jazzsängerin, ein Privatdetektiv und eine Gewerkschaftsaktivistin und, nicht zu vergessen, ein Archivar, der über das labyrinthische Polizeiarchiv (The Vault) wacht, und dem etwas komisch vorkommt.

Insgesamt durchaus angenehm zu lesen mit vielen schnellen Wechseln des POV; einige Logiklöcher und manchmal etwas zu viel tell und zu wenig show. Würde einen guten Schwarz-Weiß-Film abgeben.… (mehr)

Some really good ideas here. The alternative past with no obvious big change having happened is interesting. The power not just of information, but the power of organization--the ability to find what you want and to relate one bit of data to another. The setting--a kind of 1930s or 40s city, corrupt and heavily divided by race, class, ethnicity and use--is well and not-too-sentimentally done. Ball is very, very good at creating a sense of atmosphere. Though his "City" is generic, there seems to been a lot of research dumped into this project, and Ball uses it to great effect here.

Also has more than a whiff of the novels of the era he is re-creating here--socially conscious, with an unstable mixture of cynicism and hope.

In keeping with some of the books in that tradition, politics is very much to the forefront and, here, unfortunately, very much at the level of juvenilia. (Not that I disagree with it, just that there's not an ounce of insight in it)

And a lot else is spoiled by (I suspect) a rather too business savvy editor and the pressing need to set up a sequel.

I'm pretty sure "setup for next" includes the choice of one potential protagonist and the cliche-riddled killing off of another. In a world where no genre novel is a standalone, they all seem to stumble and lurch and lean drunkenly against one another.… (mehr)