Tag: noir

Baker Street Irregular: A Novel by Craig W. Fisher

JLLeave a comment
Baker Street Irregular: A Novel
by Craig W. Fisher

Readers who love a good spy novel, immersive writing with fleshy details, and large casts of characters will find a gem in Baker Street Irregular.

The novel follows a WWII British spy, Bill Hoffman, as he navigates Nazi occupied Europe, attending to the missions he has been tasked with. His primary task is to track a Nazi official in Vichy France, but events lead him to a deeper mystery.

I have mixed thoughts about Baker Street Irregular. On the positive side, Fisher is adept at storytelling, weaving the historical fabric of WWII through an intricate interaction of historical details and dark, noir-ish mood-setting scenes. The story is compelling. And Fisher is a good writer, possessing a unique voice and style. Fisher’s characters too are clearly visible. The novel reads like literary fiction: deeply reflective and full of wartime shadows.

But, some of these same aspects of the novel lost me as a reader. The pace of the novel is slow; long and numerous pages flow without progressing the arc of the story, even as they contribute to making the grey landscape of war tangible for the reader. Pages and pages would pass without a clear direction of where things are headed. At 328 pages — not including Historical Notes and a Glossary of terms at the end — the meanderings within the novel induced torpor, rather than interest. There are also numerous characters; Fisher’s attention to detail suggests each one is one to remember, leading this reader to forget many of them for lack of memory to track them all.

All in all, Baker Street Irregular delivers on its promise. Readers who enjoy historical fiction set in WWII or languid, noir novels are very likely to find it gripping and satisfying.

Zig Zag: A Novel by J.D. O’Brien

JLLeave a comment
Zig Zag: A Novel by J.D. O’Brien

Oh my goodness, this was a fun, fun, fun read! It was like reading an indie version of Ocean’s Eleven, but without the attractive people, fabulous clothes, or money$money$money! Ha! This is a Western, Noir, Stoner, Comedy novel rolled into one. There’s drugs, sex, manipulation, and crime in this swift-moving novel of criminal bungling.

The story revolves around a weed dispensary, its employees, and those within its seedy orbit. There is a plot, hatched by an amateur criminal, a woman who works at the dispensary. She ropes in her dimwitted boyfriend who also works there. (You can see where this is going!) They commit the crime and it’s off! There is bounty hunter and a chase to track them down and that’s what the zig zag is all about.

This is a very entertaining read. It leaves you feeling bemused, glad that you’re smarter than most of the characters in the novel, but don’t expect anything earth-shattering. Life most blockbuster films, the thrill is only as good as it lasts, and that’s OK.

What makes this enjoyable — just as it is with most films — is the writing. O’Brien’s prose is witty, humorous. This reads as smoothly as a screenplay, transiting from scene to scene ease. This novel is a perfect Sunday afternoon read; the kind that makes you happy about going to work the next day because where you work isn’t this HAHA!