Galveston by Nic Pizzolatto

Galveston is the novel from Nic Pizzolatta who was the show creator and writer of the neo noir True Detective which was set in Louisiana. That style of dark realism is shot through this gritty tale of low rtent lives in the shallow end of the criminal underworld. Rot Cody is a small time enforcer / hitman cracking head and collecting money for a local crime boss when what should have been simple job goes horrifically wrong. He’s forced to run both from the police and his ex-boss taking the only other survivor a damaged young girl called Rocky with him.

The change in circumstances forces him to evaluate his own life and he acts like a surrogate father or elder brother to rocky when his every instinct is screaming at him to abandon her and go it alone.

The writing is shot through with ink black poetry finding beauty and meaning in the minutiae and gutter scrapings of small lives poorly lived.  The charactisations are spot on and the plot is more about atmosphere and suspense than full on action. Anyone who’s looking for an American slice of the dark Scandinavian fiction should find themselves right at home here. 

Dominion CJ SANSSOM

Dominion asks the question what would happen if Britain had capitulated after the Dunkirk escape? How would Europe have changed the book is set in 1950s when the third Reich had finished on the western front and Britain is a fascist state under Prime minster Mosley.    David Fitzgerald is an unremarkable civil servant who has started to leak documents to Churchill resistance. He’s given a mission to smuggle an old school friend with a terrible secret out of the county. However the German army the British fascist and the SS will do anything to posses it.

This is a slow burner to start with having a glacial pace that really builds the drab grey atmosphere of post war fifties with a horrific Nazi twist. As with all of Sansoms work the research is impeccable and he delves into some of the facts behind the fiction at the end of the book. However you never get the feeling the writer is trying to blind you with information. “Never Mind the plot feel my research!” not naming names *cough* Kate Moss *cough*

In a sentence, it’s end of the affair meets Len Deighton 

Gone girl – Gillian Flynn

The movie has been out for a little while so I thought I’d read the book first, as I prefer to do things that way around where possible. Gone Girl centres around the marriage of a New York couple Nick and Amy who have to give up their city-life to move out to the sticks to support Nick’s family. When Amy goes missing in suspicious circumstances the skeletons of the couples decaying relationship are spilled out in front of a baying media as Nick’s culpability is called into question.

It’s hard to talk about this story without giving plot points away but I can say that the writing and distinctive voices of the characters shines through, using alternatively Nicks accounts of current events and Amy’s Diary of the previous years together. This device of current and past events gives flight to a plot that keeps the pages turning well into the night. It’s definitely a ‘just one more chapter’ book and will keep you gripped until the final page.

The casting of Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike gives hope that the movie will hold some of the dramatic power of the book. But I’d read it first just in case it’s a let-down… There has been some controversy about the book/film which directly relates to spoilers but I think the story should be seen entirely as a work of speculative fiction and not an endorsement of any particular view.

Thoughts from a Conference

Business speech in every mouth
Cheap suits in every corner
Conferences suck

I work in business
This is not what I imagined
A life badly lived

My tie only chokes me
Someone somewhere is laughing
Anywhere but here

For security
I made a cage for myself
I cannot see the sky

Life is before me
A million shades of Beige
Time for something else.