Tros or "Who's Afraid of Talbot Mundy?"

Recently read:
Depths by Henning Mankell, Interesting psychological study. Mankell slowly peels away the layers of an ordinary person to reveal a psycho killer. Highly recommended.

Drive by James Sallis. Short, "noir" thriller, told in flash-forward, flash-back structure. The plot is reminiscent of a Westlake/Stark Parker novel; a criminal job gone bad and revenge among thieves . Non-stop action told in an interesting style. Lots of cynical dialogue interspersed with literary and music references. Highly recommended.

Infamy (La Lumiere Noire) by Francis Carco. Opium, cocaine, incest, lesbians, etc.. Racier bits are subtlly suggested. Wild stories with minimal and unpredictable plots, mainly psychological portraits . Highly recommended, long out of print. Also recommended: Perversity, Only a Woman, Depravity.

A world apart and other stories : Czech women writers at the fin de siècle by Kathleen Hayes
The title story is about an obsessive lesbian love. The rest
are romantic folk tales, except most end in brutal murder or suicide. Few, if any, happy endings. Highly recommended.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas
Both of these mysteries have interesting characters, but, unfortunately, are burdened by unnecessarily complicated plots that stretch across generations and strain credulity. Disappointing.

Wow, "few, if any, happy endings"! How uplifting in this season of greed, war, and general amuckness.

O' Muse,

Is the amuckness contagious? Let's hope not.
Merry Xmas, I think...

Xmas has been cancelled. Let the Saturnalia begin.

You have set me in search of Infamy. I really enjoyed Perversity. Carco was a man after my own heart. The kind of guy I'd really enjoy conversing with over drinks in a very sleazy bar.

I must grab a copy of A World Apart and Other Stories. I am currently reading my way through the Czech decadents. Klima and Leppin are in my reading pile this holiday season. Kirsten Lodge's collection of Czech decadent poetry is fantastic. Her translations are sublime. The Czech's seem even more death obsessed than the Russians, if that's possible.

Davushka,

You must read Knut Hamsun's work. tros, the Czech collection you mentioned sounds fabulous. However, bookshelf space at the dacha is limited, so I try to get as many books on Kindle as I can. At the moment, I need to do the great book purge and rid myself of unworthy books.

I LOVED Knut Hamsun's Hunger, which I read about 10 years ago. I need to read more of his novels.

Carco is wild and interesting. Maybe that's why he's still
relatively unknown? His work is approaching 100 years from
pub., yet he seems contemporary.
Just picked up Dedalus Book of Russian Decadence. I've read some Andreyev but no Sologub, etc. Looks interesting.

The Sologub stories in the Dedalus collection are especially wicked. I love the Zanaida Gippius and Bruisov poems in particular as well. I really love this book. I think it's one of the very best of the Dedalus collections. Many thanks to Kirsten Lodge.

Message 2: Tros: your review prompts me to pull that book of my shelf this very evening. Also, re Sologub: I recommend starting with The Petty Demon: it's easily had, and cheaply - and full of gratuitous meanness and fervid alcoholism that can swear you off the bottle for days (much like The Sun Also Rises and Under the Volcano - some mild incidents of general naughtiness and androgeny as well. DavidX - if you haven't yet, you must read Hamsun's Mysteries and Pan... (and the Swede, Hjalmar Söderberg) there most be something in those endless gray days and lye-pickled fishes. I am going to get started on Weary Men by Arne Garborg. Should facilitate the nourishing light of my sunny disposition immensely.

I read the censored(Sologub removed 15% off the text himself) translation of The Petty Demon by Andrew Field. After reading it I learned that it was a censored translation. Now I'm going to have to read the uncensored translation by S.D. Coiran. The censored Field translation was very, very good and pretty naughty as it is. But of course I want to read all the even naughtier censored bits now. I love Sologub's meanness and despicable characters and his dark sense of humour. So refreshingly hateful.

I am intrigued by Hamsun's Pan and Mysteries and will grab them soon.

I'm currently smitten with George Sylvester Vierick. Another neopagan with progerman sympathies.

Hjalmar Söderberg and Arne Garborg are new to me. Thanks, I'll check them out.

If you have not read Söderberg, you are in for a treat. I can recommend Doctor Glas and Martin Birck's Youth.

Haven't read "The Petty Demon". I'll check out the uncensored version. of course! ;-)
I have the "Dedalus Book of Russian Decadence" on the TBR pile. Looking forward to catching up on Sologub.
Just finished;
The Dead Don't Lie by Stuart Kaminsky. Part of the Lieberman series. Excellent.
Exit Music by Ian Rankin. IR has a lot of music references in his novels. EM mentions Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Davey Graham, Fairport Convention, etc.
Reading;
Midnight Fugue by Reginald Hill.
Blackwater by Michael McDowell. 6 book series of southern, gothic, horror. The matriarch of the clan changes into a crocodile! Haven't read much current horror, except Dan Simmons.

Patrick McGrath does a good job with modern gothic horror. I have read The Grotesque, which, if you like P.G. Wodehouse (Bertie as truly helpless, Jeeves will all his latent malice in flower), Poe, and Leonard Cline's The Dark Chamber, you should find interesting. Then, of course, there's Arabist/novelist, Robert Irwin.