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Bell, Andrea L. and Molina-Gavilàn, Yolanda (editors). Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain. Middletown. 2003. Wesleyan University Press. 9780819566348. Early Classics of Science Fiction. 368 pages. paperback.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

Opening a window onto a fascinating new world for English-speaking readers, this anthology offers popular and influential stories from over ten countries, chronologically ranging from 1862 to the present. Latin American and Spanish science fiction shares many thematic and stylistic elements with anglophone science fiction, but there are important differences: many downplay scientific plausibility, and others show the influence of the region's celebrated literary fantastic. In the 27 stories included in this anthology, a 16th-century conquistador is re-envisioned as a cosmonaut, Mexican factory workers receive pleasure-giving bio-implants, and warring bands of terrorists travel through time attempting to reverse the outcome of historical events. The introduction examines the ways the genre has developed in Latin America and Spain since the 1700s and studies science fiction as a means of defamiliarizing, and then critiquing, regional culture, history and politics-especially in times of censorship and political repression. The volume also includes a brief introduction to each story and its author, and an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary works. Cosmos Latinos is a critical contribution to Latin American, Spanish, popular culture and science fiction studies and will be stimulating reading for anyone who likes a good story. CONTENTS: IN THE BEGINNING - Juan Nepomuceno Adorno - ‘The Distant Future’ (Mexico, 1862); Nilo Maria Fabra - ‘On the Planet Mars’ (Spain, 1890); SPECULATING ON A NEW GENRE: SF FROM 1900 THROUGH THE - 1950s; Miguel de Unamuno - ‘Mechanopolis’ (Spain, 1013); Ernesto Silva Roman - ‘The Death Star’ (Chile, 1929); Juan Jose Arreola – ‘Baby H.P’ (Mexico, 1052); THE FIRST WAVE: THE 1960s TO THE MID-1980s; Angel Arango - ‘The Cosmonaut’ (Cuba, 1964); Jeronimo Monteiro - ‘The Crystal Goblet’ (Brazil, 1964); Alvaro Menen Desleal - ‘A Cord Made of Nylon and Gold’ (El Salvador, 1965); Pablo Capanna - ‘Scronia’ (Argentina, 1967); Magdalena Moujan Otano - ‘Gu TA Gutarrack (We and Our Own) (Argentina, 1968); Luis Britto Garcia - ‘Future’ (Venezuela, 1970); Hugo Correa - ‘When Pilate Said No’ (Chile, 1971); Jose B. Adolph - ‘The Falsifier’ (Peru, 1972); Angelica Gorodischer - ‘The Violet’s Embryo’s’ (Argentina, 1973); Andre Carneiro - ‘Brain Transplant’ (Brazil, 1978); Daina Chaviano - ‘The Annunciation’ (Cuba, 1983); Federico Schaffler - ‘A Miscalculation’ (Mexico, 1983); RIDING THE CREST: THE LATE 1980s INTO THE NEW MILLENIUM - Braulio Tavares - ‘Stuntmind’ (Brazil 1989); Guillermo Lavin ‘ - Reaching the Shore’ (Mexico, 1994); Elia Barrcelo - ‘First Time’ (Spain, 1994); Pepe Rojo - ‘Gray Noise’ (Mexico, 1996); Mauricio-Jose Schwarz - ‘Glimmerings on Blue Glass’ (Mexico, 1996); Ricard de la Casa and Pedro Jorge Romero - ‘The Day We Went through the Transition’ (Spain, 1998); Pablo Castro - ‘Exeriom’ (Chile, 2000); Michel Encinosa - ‘Like the Roses Had to Die’ (Cuba, 2001).

 

ANDREA L. BELL is Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at Hamline University in Minnesota.

 

YOLANDA MOLINA-GAVILÀN is Associate Professor of Spanish at Eckerd College in Florida and the translator of Rosa Montero’s The Delta Function (1992).

 

 

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Rottensteiner, Franz (editor). The Black Mirror and Other Stories: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Germany and Austria. Middletown. 2008. Wesleyan University Press. 9780819568311. Translated from the German by Mike Mitchell. Early Classics of Science Fiction. 424 pages. hardcover.  

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

This entertaining anthology delivers great reading and an overview of German-language science fiction, including works by the 'German father of science fiction' Kurd Lasswitz, the Austrian writer Ludwig Hevesi (author of 'Jules Verne in Hell'), the fantasist Paul Scheerbart (a scurrilous, idiosyncratic writer who was an outsider in both literature and science fiction), popular writers Otto Willi Gail and Hans Dominik, as well as the contemporary luminaries of the genre: Wolfgang Jeschke, Herbert W. Franke, Andreas Eschbach, and Carl Amery. The introduction by the editor gives a succinct history of German language science fiction, including its representation in Hugo Gernsback's popular magazines. With select bibliographies of German language science fiction and writings on German science fiction, this book will be appreciated by scholars and general readers alike.

 

FRANZ ROTTENSTEINER has written and edited many books in the fields of science fiction and fantasy, including The Fantasy Book: An Illustrated History from Dracula to Tolkien (1978), View From Another Shore: European Science Fiction (1999), and The Best of Austrian Science Fiction (2001). He lives in Vienna, Austria. MIKE MITCHELL has translated over 50 books. He was awarded the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of Herbert Rosendorfer’s Letters Back to Ancient China (1997) and lives in Argyll, on the west coast of Scotland.

 

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Horowitz, Alexandra. Being a Dog: Following the Dog Into a World of Smell. New York. 2016. Scribner. 9781476795997. 353 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Jaya Miceli. Jacket photo by Roberta Tancredi. 

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

Alexandra Horowitz, the author of the lively, highly informative New York Times bestselling blockbuster Inside of a Dog, explains how dogs perceive the world through their most spectacular organ—the nose—and how we humans can put our under-used sense of smell to work in surprising ways. To a dog, there is no such thing as “fresh air.” Every breath of air is loaded with information. In fact, what every dog—the tracking dog, of course, but also the dog lying next to you, snoring, on the couch—knows about the world comes mostly through his nose. In Being a Dog, Alexandra Horowitz, a research scientist in the field of dog cognition and the author of the runaway bestseller Inside of a Dog, unpacks the mystery of a dog’s worldview as has never been done before. With her family dogs, Finnegan and Upton, leading the way, Horowitz sets off on a quest to make sense of scents, combining a personal journey of smelling with a tour through the cutting edge and improbable science behind the olfactory powers of the dog. From revealing the spectacular biology of the dog snout, to speaking to other cognitive researchers and smell experts across the country, to visiting detection-dog training centers and even attempting to smell-train her own nose, Horowitz covers the topic of noses—both canine and human—from surprising, novel, and always fascinating angles. As we come to understand how complex the world around us appears to the canine nose, Horowitz changes our perspective on dogs forever. Readers will finish this book feeling that they have smelled into a fourth dimension—breaking free of human constraints and understanding smell as never before; that they have, however fleetingly, been a dog.

 

Alexandra Horowitz teaches psychology, canine cognition, and creative nonfiction writing at Barnard College, Columbia University. She earned her PhD in Cognitive Science at the University of California at San Diego, and has studied the cognition of humans, rhinoceros, bonobos, and dogs. For seventeen years she shared her home with an unwitting research subject, Pumpernickel, a wonderful mixed breed. Now her Dog Cognition Lab studies the behavior of owned dogs to keep discovering what they see, smell, and know. Before her scientific career, Horowitz worked as a lexicographer at Merriam-Webster and served on the staff of The New Yorker. Her latest book, On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes, was published in 2013. She lives in New York City with her husband, young son, and two large, non-heeling dogs.

 

 

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Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes. London. 1950. Falcon Press. 402 pages. Cover design by A. H. Eisner.

 

Chester Himes - his writing can be brutal, but it is unrelentingly honest.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

   This is the second novel by Chester Himes to be published by the Falcon Press. This is what the critics said of his earlier book, IF HE HOLLERS LET HIM GO: 'Mr. Chester Himes writes of his own race, the negroes of the Los Angeles district, and he succeeds in filling his story with more stark brutality and emotional violence than any other treatment of the theme I have read. ' - Sunday Times. The mercilessness and savagery of a born fiction writer show us the faults on both sides. This is a partisan book but written with enough generosity for it to play upon the spiritual values of every reader. ' - Daily Express. Himes maintains his high standard in his new book and we cannot do better than quote the critics once more. This is what the New Yorker wrote of LONELY CRUSADE: 'A bitter story about a thoughtful young negro who becomes a union organizer at a West Coast airplane factory during the recent war. Unlike most novels that explore the difficulties of the black man, this one does not stack the cards too obviously against the hero; the union members cultivate him for political purposes, and his employer is friendly to Communists. The tragedy of this particular man is a psychological one--a growing despair over being black, which hamstrings him in every human relationship.' 

 

 

The American edition:

 

The Lonely Crusade by Chester Himes. New York. 1947. Knopf. 398 pages.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

    A classic of African-American fiction, Chester Himes's tale of a young black man who becomes a union organizer during WWII examines major problems in American life: racism, anti-Semitism, labor strife, and corruption. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chester Bomar Himes (July 29, 1909 - November 12, 1984) was an American writer. His works include If He Hollers Let Him Go and a series of Harlem Detective novels. In 1958 he won France's Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. Chester Himes was born in Jefferson City, Missouri, on July 29, 1909. He grew up in a middle-class home in Missouri. When Himes was about 12 years old, his father took a teaching job at Branch Normal College (now University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff), and soon a tragedy took place that would profoundly shape Himes's view of race relations. He had misbehaved and his mother made him sit out a gunpowder demonstration that he and his brother, Joseph Jr., were supposed to conduct during a school assembly. Working alone, Joseph mixed the chemicals; they exploded in his face. Rushed to the nearest hospital, the blinded boy was refused treatment. ‘That one moment in my life hurt me as much as all the others put together,’ Himes wrote in The Quality of Hurt. ‘I loved my brother. I had never been separated from him and that moment was shocking, shattering, and terrifying....We pulled into the emergency entrance of a white people's hospital. White clad doctors and attendants appeared. I remember sitting in the back seat with Joe watching the pantomime being enacted in the car's bright lights. A white man was refusing; my father was pleading. Dejectedly my father turned away; he was crying like a baby. My mother was fumbling in her handbag for a handkerchief; I hoped it was for a pistol.’ Chester's parents were Joseph Sandy Himes and Estelle Bomar Himes; his father was a peripatetic black college professor of industrial trades and his mother was a teacher at Scotia Seminary prior to marriage; the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. His parents' marriage was unhappy and eventually ended in divorce. Himes attended East High School in Cleveland, Ohio. While he was a freshman at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, he was expelled for playing a prank. In late 1928 he was arrested and sentenced to jail and hard labor for 20 to 25 years for armed robbery and sent to Ohio Penitentiary. In prison, he wrote short stories and had them published in national magazines. Himes stated that writing in prison and being published was a way to earn respect from guards and fellow inmates, as well as to avoid violence. His first stories appeared in 1931 in The Bronzeman and, starting in 1934, in Esquire. His story ‘To What Red Hell’ (published in Esquire in 1934) as well as to his novel Cast the First Stone - only much later republished unabridged as Yesterday Will Make You Cry (1998) - dealt with the catastrophic 1930 prison fire Himes witnessed at Ohio Penitentiary in 1930. In 1934 Himes was transferred to London Prison Farm and in April 1936 he was released on parole into his mother's custody. Following his release he worked at part-time jobs and at the same time continued to write. During this period he came in touch with Langston Hughes, who facilitated Himes's contacts with the world of literature and publishing. In 1936 Himes married Jean Johnson. In the 1940s Himes spent time in Los Angeles, working as a screenwriter but also producing two novels, If He Hollers Let Him Go and The Lonely Crusade that charted the experiences of the wave of black in-migrants, drawn by the city's defense industries, and their dealings with the established black community, fellow workers, unions and management. He also provided an analysis of the Zoot Suit Riots for The Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP. By the 1950s Himes had decided to settle in France permanently, a country he liked in part due to his popularity in literary circles. In Paris, Himes' was the contemporary of the political cartoonist Oliver Harrington and fellow expatriate writers Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and William Gardner Smith. It was in Paris in the late 1950s that Chester met his second wife Lesley Himes, née Packard, when she went to interview him. She was a journalist at the Herald Tribune, where she wrote her own fashion column, ‘Monica’. He described her as ‘Irish-English with blue-gray eyes and very good looking’, he also saw her courage and resilience, Chester said to Lesley, ‘You’re the only true color-blind person I’ve ever met in my life.’ After he suffered a stroke, in 1959, Lesley quit her job and nursed him back to health. She cared for him for the rest of his life, and worked with him as his informal editor, proofreader, confidante and, as the director, Van Peebles dubbed her, ‘his watchdog’. After a long engagement, they were married in 1978. Lesley and Chester faced adversities as a mixed race couple but they prevailed. Theirs was a life lived with an unparallelled passion and great humor. Their circle of political colleagues and creative friends included not only such towering figures as Langston Hughes and Richard Wright; it also included figures such as Malcolm X, Carl Van Vechten, Picasso, Jean Miotte, Ollie Harrington, Nikki Giovanni and Ishmael Reed. Bohemian life in Paris would in turn lead them to the South of France and finally on to Spain, where they lived until Chester’s death in 1984. In 1969 Himes moved to Moraira, Spain, where he died in 1984 from Parkinson's Disease. He is buried at Benissa cemetery.

 

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The Inspector Montalbano mysteries from Andrea Camilleri

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Shape of Water: The First Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2002. Viking Press. 0670030929. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 225 pages. hardcover. Cover: Andy Bridge. 

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

Andrea Camilleri's novels starring Inspector Montalbano have become an international sensation and have been translated from Italian into eight languages, ranging from Dutch to Japanese. THE SHAPE OF WATER is the first book in this sly, witty, and engaging series with its sardonic take on Sicilian life. Early one morning, Silvio Lupanello, a big shot in the village of Vigàta, is found dead in his car with his pants around his knees. The car happens to be parked in a rough part of town frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers, and as the news of his death spreads, the rumors begin. Enter Inspector Salvo Montalbano, Vigàta's most respected detective. With his characteristic mix of humor, cynicism, compassion, and love of good food, Montalbano goes into battle against the powerful and the corrupt who are determined to block his path to the real killer. This funny and fast-paced Sicilian page-turner will be a delicious discovery for mystery aficionados and fiction lovers alike.

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Terra-Cotta Dog: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2002. Viking Press. 0670031380. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 340 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Andy Bridge.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano has garnered millions of fans worldwide with his sardonic take on Sicilian life. Montalbano's latest case begins with a mysterious têtê à têtê with a Mafioso, some inexplicably abandoned loot from a supermarket heist, and dying words that lead him to an illegal arms cache in a mountain cave. There, the inspector finds two young lovers, dead for fifty years and still embracing, watched over by a life-sized terra-cotta dog. Montalbano's passion to solve this old crime takes him on a journey through Sicily's past and into one family's darkest secrets. With sly wit and a keen understanding of human nature, Montalbano is a detective whose earthiness, compassion, and imagination make him totally irresistable.

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Snack Thief: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2003. Viking Press. 0670032239. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 298 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Andy Bridge. 

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

In the third book in Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series, the urbane and perceptive Sicilian detective exposes a viper's nest of government corruption and international intrigue in a compelling new case. When an elderly man is stabbed to death in an elevator and a crewman on an Italian fishing trawler is machine-gunned by a Tunisian patrol boat off Sicily's coast, only Montalbano suspects the link between the two incidents. His investigation leads to the beautiful Karima, an impoverished housecleaner and sometime prostitute, whose young son steals other schoolchildren's midmorning snacks. But Karima disappears, and the young snack thief's life-as well as Montalbano's-is on the line.

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. Voice of the Violin: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2003. Viking Press. 0670031437. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 249 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Andy Bridge, Jacket design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

Inspector Salvo Montalbano, with his compelling mix of humor, cynicism, and compassion, has been compared to Georges Simenon's, Dashiel Hammett's, and Raymond Chandler's legendary detectives. In this latest novel, Montalbano's gruesome discovery of a lovely, naked young woman suffocated in her bed immediately sets him on a search for her killer. Among the suspects are her aging husband, a famous doctor; a shy admirer, now disappeared; an antiques-dealing lover from Bologna; and the victim's friend Anna, whose charms Montalbano cannot help but appreciate. But it is a mysterious, reclusive violinist who holds the key to this murder.

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. Excursion to Tindari: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2005. Penguin Books. 014303460x. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 295 pages. paperback. Cover design by Paul Buckley. Cover illustration by Andy Bridge.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

A young Don Juan is found murdered in front of his apartment building early one morning, and an elderly couple is reported missing after an excursion to the ancient site of Tindari - two seemingly unrelated cases for Inspector Montalbano to solve amid the daily complications of life at Vigata police headquarters. But when Montalbano discovers that the couple and the murdered young man lived in the same building, his investigation stumbles onto Sicily’s brutal ‘New Mafia’, which leads him down a path more evil and far-reaching than any he has been on before.

 

  

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Smell of the Night: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2005. Penguin Books. 0143036203. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 229 pages. paperback. Jacket illustration by Andy Bridge, Jacket design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

The number of Inspector Montalbano fans will continue to grow with this ingenious new novel featuring the earthy and urbane Sicilian detective. Half the retirees in Vigata have invested their savings with a financial wizard who has disappeared, along with their money. As Montalbano investigates this labyrinthine financial scam, he finds himself at a serious disadvantage: a hostile superior has shut him out of the case, he’s on the outs with his lover Livia, and his cherished Sicily is turning so ruthless and vulgar that Montalbano wonders if any part of it is worth saving. Drenched with atmosphere, crackling with wit, THE SMELL OF THE NIGHT is Camilleri at his most addictive.

 

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. Rounding the Mark: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2006. Penguin Books. 014303748x. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 304 pages. paperback. Jacket illustration by Andy Bridge, Jacket design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

The earthy and urbane Sicilian detective Inspector Montalbano casts his spell on more and more fans with each new mystery from Andrea Camilleri. Two seemingly unrelated deaths form the central mystery of ROUNDING THE MARK. They will take Montalbano deep into a secret world of illicit trafficking in human lives, and the investigation will test the limits of his physical, psychological, and moral endurance. Disillusioned and no longer believing in the institution he serves, will he withdraw or delve deeper into his work?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Patience of the Spider: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2007. Penguin Books. 9780143112037. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 244 pages. paperback. Cover design by Paul Buckley. Cover illustration by Andy Bridge.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

 ‘Can a man, approaching the end of his career, rebel a conditions that have kept him where he is?’ Still recovering from his gunshot wound, Inspector Montalbano is feeling the weight of his years, and of his solitude. He’s getting softer, more introspective, and critical of his life choices. But if withdrawing from society has become natural of late, he’ll soon be forced to interact with others, compelled to intervene as a web of hatred and secrets threatens to squeeze its victims to death. This is Montalbano’s most unusual and challenging case yet and the one that will either change him or break him.

 

 

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Paper Moon: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2008. Penguin Books. 0143113003. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 264 pages. paperback. Jacket illustration by Andy Bridge, Jacket design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

With their dark sophistication and dry humor, Andrea Camilleri's classic crime novels continue to win more and more fans in America. The latest installment of the popular mystery series finds the moody Inspector Montalbano further beset by the existential questions that have been plaguing him of late. But he doesn't have much time to wax philosophical before the gruesome murder of a man-shot at point-blank range in the face with his pants down-commands his attention. Add two evasive, beautiful women as prime suspects, some dirty cocaine, mysterious computer codes, and a series of threatening letters, and things soon get very complicated at the police headquarters in Vigàta.

 

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. August Heat: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2009. Penguin Books. 0143114055. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 278 pages. paperback. Jacket illustration by Andy Bridge, Jacket design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

When a colleague extends his summer vacation, Inspector Salvo Montalbano is forced to stay in Vigàta and endure the August heat. Montalbano's long-suffering girlfriend, Livia, joins him with a friend-husband and young son in tow-to keep her company during these dog days of summer. But when the boy suddenly disappears into a narrow shaft hidden under the family's beach rental, Montalbano, in pursuit of the child, uncovers something terribly sinister. As the inspector spends the summer trying to solve this perplexing case, Livia refuses to answer his calls-and Montalbano is left to take a plunge that will affect the rest of his life. Fans of the Sicilian inspector as well as readers new to this increasingly popular series will enjoy following the melancholy but unflinchingly moral Montalbano as he undertakes one of the most shocking investigations of his career.
 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Wings of the Sphinx: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2009. Penguin Books. 0143116608. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 231 pages. paperback. Jacket illustration by Andy Bridge, Jacket design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

Things are not going well for Inspector Salvo Montalbano. His relationship with Livia is once again on the rocks and-acutely aware of his age-he is beginning to grow weary of the endless violence he encounters. Then a young woman is found dead, her face half shot off and only a tattoo of a sphinx moth giving any hint of her identity. The tattoo links her to three similarly marked girls-all victims of the underworld sex trade-who have been rescued from the Mafia night-club circuit by a prominent Catholic charity. The problem is, Montalbano's inquiries elicit an outcry from the Church and the three other girls are all missing.

 

 

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Track of Sand: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2010. Penguin Books. 9780143117933. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 264 pages. paperback. Cover design by Paul Buckley. Cover illustration by Andy Bridge.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

Inspector Salvatore Montalbano wakes from strange dreams to find a gruesomely bludgeoned horse carcass in front of his seaside home. When his men came to investigate, the carcass has disappeared, leaving only a trail in the sand. Then his home is ransacked and the inspector is certain that the crimes are linked. As he negotiates both the glittering underworld of horseracing and the Mafia's connection to it, Montalbano is aided by his illiterate housekeeper, Adelina, and a Proustian memory of linguate fritte. Longtime fans and new readers alike will be charmed by Montalbano's blend of unorthodox methods, melancholy self-reflection, and love of good food.

 

 

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Potter’s Field: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2011. Penguin Books. 9780143120131. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 277 pages. paperback. Cover design by Paul Buckley. Cover illustration by Andy Bridge. 

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

Witty and entertaining, the Montalbano novels by Andrea Camilleri-a master of the Italian detective story-have become favorites of mystery fans everywhere. In this latest installment, an unidentified corpse is found near Vigàta, a town known for its soil rich with potter's clay. Meanwhile, a woman reports the disappearance of her husband, a Colombian man with Sicilian origins who turns out to be related to a local mobster. Then Inspector Montalbano remembers the story from the Bible-Judas's betrayal, the act of remorse, and the money for the potter's field, where those of unknown or foreign origin are to be buried-and slowly, through myriad betrayals, finds his way to the solution to the crime.

 

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Age of Doubt: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2012. Penguin Books. 9780143120926. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 274 pages. paperback. Cover design by Paul Buckley. Cover illustration by Andy Bridge.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

The day after a storm, Inspector Montalbano encounters a strange woman who expresses interest in a certain yacht scheduled to dock that afternoon. Not long after she's gone, the yacht's crew reports finding a disfigured corpse. Also at anchor is a luxury vessel with a somewhat shady crew. Both boats will have to stay in Vigàta until the investigation is over and, based on information from the woman, Montalbano begins to think the occupants of the yacht might know more about the man's death than they're letting on.

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Dance of the Seagull: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery . New York. 2013. Penguin Books. 9780143122616. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 277 pages. paperback. Cover design by Paul Buckley. Cover illustration by Andy Bridge.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

Inspector Montalbano musts search for his missing right-hand man. But is he already too late? Before leaving for vacation with Livia, Montalbano witnesses a seagull doing an odd dance on the beach outside his home, when the bird suddenly drops dead. Stopping in at his office for a quick check before heading off, he notices that Fazio is nowhere to be found and soon learns that he was last seen on the docks, secretly working on a case. Montalbano sets out to find him and discovers that the seagull's dance of death may provide the key to understanding a macabre world of sadism, extortion, and murder.

 

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. Treasure Hunt: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2013. Penguin Books. 9780143122623. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 288 pages. hardcover. Cover design by Paul Buckley. Cover illustration by Andy Bridge.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

In TREASURE HUNT, Montalbano is hailed as a hero after news cameras film him scaling a building—gun in hand—to capture a pair of unlikely snipers. Shortly after, the inspector begins to receive cryptic messages in verse from someone challenging him to go on a ‘treasure hunt.’ Intrigued, he accepts, treating the messages as amusing riddles—until they take a dangerous turn.

 

 

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. Angelica's Smile: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2014. Penguin Books. 9780143123767. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 293 pages. paperback. Cover design by Paul Buckley. Cover illustration by Andy Bridge.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

The seventeenth installment of the beloved New York Times bestselling series that boasts more than 600,000 books in print The last four books in Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano series have leapfrogged their way up the New York Times bestseller list, perfectly positioning Angelica's Smile to ascend to even greater heights. A rash of burglaries has got Inspector Salvo Montalbano stumped. The criminals are so brazen that their leader, the anonymous Mr. Z, starts sending the Sicilian inspector menacing letters. Among those burgled is the young and beautiful Angelica Cosulich, who reminds the inspector of the love-interest in Ludovico Ariosto's chivalric romance, Orlando Furioso. Besotted by Angelica's charms, Montalbano imagines himself back in the medieval world of jousts and battles. But when one of the burglars turns up dead, Montalbano must snap out of his fantasy and unmask his challenger.

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. Game of Mirrors: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2015. Penguin Books. 9780143123774. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 277 pages. paperback. Art by Andy Bridge. Design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

In Game of Mirrors, Inspector Montalbano and his colleagues are stumped when two bombs explode outside empty warehouses—one of which is connected to a big-time drug dealer. Meanwhile, the alluring Liliana Lombardo is trying to seduce the Inspector over red wine and arancini. Between pesky reporters, amorous trysts, and cocaine kingpins, Montalbano feels as if he’s being manipulated on all fronts. That is, until the inspector himself becomes the prime suspect in an unspeakably brutal crime.

 

 

  

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. A Beam of Light: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2015. Penguin Books. 9780143126430. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 274 pages. paperback. Art by Andy Bridge. Design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

When Inspector Montalbano falls under the charms of beautiful gallery owner Marian, his longtime relationship with Livia comes under threat. Meanwhile, he is also troubled by a strange dream as three crimes demand his attention: the assault and robbery of a wealthy merchant's young wife, shady art deals, and a search for arms traffickers that leads him deep into the countryside, where the investigation takes a tragic turn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. A Voice in the Night: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2016. Penguin Books. 9780143126447. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 274 pages. paperback. Cover design by Paul Buckley. Cover illustration by Andy Bridge.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

Two strange deaths lead Inspector Montalbano into investigations of corruption and power in the twentieth novel in the New York Times bestselling series. Montalbano investigates a robbery at a supermarket, a standard case that takes a spin when manager Guido Borsellino is later found hanging in his office. Was it a suicide? The inspector and the coroner have their doubts, and further investigation leads to the director of a powerful local company. Meanwhile, a girl is found brutally murdered in Giovanni Strangio’s apartment—Giovanni has a flawless alibi, and it’s no coincidence that Michele Strangio, president of the province, is his father. Weaving together these two crimes, Montalbano realizes that he’s in a difficult spot where political power is enmeshed with the mafia underworld.

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. A Nest of Vipers: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2017. Penguin Books. 9780143126652. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 261 pages. paperback. Cover design by Paul Buckley. Cover illustration by Andy Bridge.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

A Nest of Vipers is the twenty-first novel in Andrea Camilleri's irresistible Inspector Montalbano series. Quite a family, you had to admit! A nest of vipers might be a better description . . . On what should be a quiet Sunday morning, Inspector Montalbano is called to a murder scene on the Sicilian coast. A man has discovered his father dead in his Vigàtan beach house: his body slumped on the dining room floor, his morning coffee spilt across the table, and a single gunshot wound at the base of his skull. First appearances point to the son having the most to gain from his father’s untimely death, a notion his sister can’t help but reinforce. But when Montalbano delves deeper into the case, and learns of the dishonourable life the victim led, it soon becomes clear half of Vigàta has a motive for his murder and this won’t be as simple as the Inspector had once hoped...

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Pyramid of Mud: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2018. Penguin Books. 9780143128083. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 256 pages. paperback. Cover design by Paul Buckley. Cover illustration by Andy Bridge.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

The latest in the New York Times bestselling series has Italy’s favorite detective uncovering corruption and mafia ties in the world of construction and contracts. On a gloomy morning in Vigàta, a call from Fazio rouses Inspector Montalbano from a nightmare. A man called Giugiù Nicotra has been found dead in the skeletal workings of a construction site, a place now entombed by a sea of mud from recent days of rain and floods. Shot in the back, he had fled into a water supply system tunnel. The investigation gets off to a slow start, but all the evidence points to the world of construction and public contracts, a world just as slimy and impenetrable as mud. As he wades through a world in which construction firms and public officials thrive, Montalbano is obsessed by one thought: that by going to die in the tunnel, Nicotra had been trying to communicate something. The novels of Andrea Camilleri breathe out the sense of place, the sense of humor, and the sense of despair that fills the air of Sicily. —Donna Leon.


 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Overnight Kidnapper: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2019. Penguin Books. 9780143131137. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 257 pages. paperback. Art by Andy Bridge. Design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

The day gets off to a bad start for Montalbano: while trying to break up a fight on Marinella beach, he hits the wrong man and is stopped by the Carabinieri. When he finally gets to the office, the inspector learns about a strange abduction: a woman was abducted, drugged, and then released unharmed only hours later. Within a few days, the same thing happens again. Both women are thirty years old and work in a bank. Montalbano also has to deal with an arson case. A shop has burned down, and its owner, Marcello Di Carlo, seems to have vanished into thin air. At first this seems like a trivial case, but a third abduction—yet again of a girl who works in a bank—and the discovery of a body bring up new questions.



 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Other End of the Line: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2019. Penguin Books. 9780143133773. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 290 pages. paperback. Art by Andy Bridge. Design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

A wave of refugees has arrived on the Sicilian coast, and Inspector Montalbano and his team have been stationed at port, alongside countless volunteers, to receive and assist the newcomers. Meanwhile, Livia has promised their presence at a friend’s wedding, and the inspector, agreeing to get a new suit tailored, meets the charming master seamstress Elena Biasini. But while on duty at the dock one late night, tragedy strikes, and Elena is found gruesomely murdered. Between managing the growing crowds at the landing, Montalbano delves into the world of garments, in the company of an orphaned cat, where he works to weave together the loose threads of the unsolved crimes and close the case. Wholly addictive, entirely magical series, set in Sicily and starring a detective unlike any other in crime fiction… altogether transporting.–A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author.

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Safety Net: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2020. Penguin Books. 9780143134961. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 261 pages. paperback. Art by Andy Bridge. Design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

Vigàta is bustling as the new filming location for a Swedish television series set in 1950. In the production frenzy, the director asks the locals to track down movies and vintage photos to faithfully recreate the air of Vigata in that time. Engineer Ernesto Sabatello, while rummaging in the attic of his house, finds some films shot by his father from 1958 to 1963, always on the same day, March 27 and always the same shot; the outside wall of a country house. Montalbano hears the story, and intrigued by the mystery of it, begins to investigate its meaning. Meanwhile, a middle school is threatened by a group of armed men, and a closer look at the situation finds Montalbano looking into the students themselves and finally delving into the world of social media.

 

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Sicilian Method: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2020. Penguin Books. 9780143134978. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 274 pages. paperback. Art by Andy Bridge. Design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

Mimi Augello is visiting his lover when the woman's husband unexpectedly returns to the apartment; he climbs out the window and into the downstairs apartment, but one danger leads to another. In the dark he sees a body lying on the bed. Shortly after, another body is found, and the victim is Carmelo Catalanotti, a director of bourgeois dramas with a harsh reputation for the acting method he developed for his actors. Are the two deaths connected? Catalanotti scrupulously kept notes and comments on all the actors he worked with, as well as strange notebooks full of figures and dates and names. Inspector Montalbano finds all of Catalanotti's dossiers and plays, the notes on the characters, and the notes on his last drama, Dangerous Turn--the theater is where he'll find the answer.

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. The Cook of the Halcyon: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2021. Penguin Books. 9780143136187. Translated from the Italian by Steve Sartarelli. 241 pages. paperback. Cover art by Andy Bridge. Cover design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

Giovanni Trincanato has brought ruin to the shipyard he inherited from his father and when a worker he fires hangs himself on the construction site, Inspector Montalbano is called to the scene. In short order, the inspector loses his temper with the crass Giovanni, delivers a slap to his face, and unfortunately, it won’t be the last he sees of Trincanato. Meanwhile, a mysterious schooner called Halcyon shows up in the harbor, seemingly deserted except for just one man. With its presence comes even more mysteries, another death, and the arrival of the FBI. Alongside Sicilian-American Agent Pennisi, Montalbano and his team must attempt a suspenseful infiltration operation in this new, page-turning Inspector Montalbano mystery.

 

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. Riccardino: An Inspector Montalbano Mystery. New York. 2021. Penguin Books. 9780143136798. Translated from the Italian by Steve Sartarelli. 260 pages. paperback. Cover art by Andy Bridge. Cover design by Paul Buckley.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

 

The long-awaited last novel in the transporting and beloved New York Times bestselling Inspector Montalbano series. At eighty, I foresaw Montalbano’s departure from the scene, I got the idea and I didn’t let it slip away. So I found myself writing this novel which is the final chapter; the last book in the series. And I sent it to my publisher saying to keep it in a drawer and to publish it only when I am gone. –Andrea Camilleri. Montalbano receives an early-morning phone call, but this time it’s not Catarella announcing a murder, but a man called Riccardino who’s dialed a wrong number and asks him when he’ll be arriving at the meeting. Montalbano, in irritation, says: In ten minutes. Shortly after, he gets another call, this one announcing the customary murder. A man has been shot and killed outside a bar in front of his three friends. It turns out to be the same man who called him. Thus begins an intricate investigation further complicated by phone calls from the Author in tour de force of metafiction and Montalbano’s last case.

 

 

Inspector Montalbano’s early cases:

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. Montalbano’s First Case and Other Stories. New York. 2016. Penguin Books. 9780143121626. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 538 pages. paperback. Cover design by Paul Buckley. Cover illustration by Andy Bridge.

FROM THE PUBLISHER –

From the author of the New York Times–bestselling Inspector Montalbano mystery series, twenty-one short stories spanning the beloved detective’s career. Inspector Montalbano has charmed readers in nineteen popular novels, and now in Montalbano’s First Case and Other Stories, Andrea Camilleri has selected twenty-one short stories, written with his trademark wit and humor, that follow Italy’s famous detective through highlight cases of his career. From the title story, featuring a young deputy Montalbano newly assigned to Vigàta, to Montalbano Says No, in which the inspector makes a late-night call to Camilleri himself to refuse an outlandish case, this collection is an essential addition to any Inspector Montalbano fan’s bookshelf and a wonderful way to introduce readers to the internationally bestselling series.

 

 

 

Camilleri, Andrea. Death at Sea: Montalbano’s Early Cases. New York. 2018. Penguin Books. 9780143108818. Translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli. 276 pages. paperback. Cover design and illustration by Andy Bridge.

FROM THE PUBLISHER - 

You either love Andrea Camilleri or you haven’t read him yet. Each novel in this wholly addictive, entirely magical series, set in Sicily and starring a detective unlike any other in crime fiction, blasts the brain like a shot of pure oxygen... transporting. Long live Camilleri, and long live Montalbano. —A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window. Set on the Sicilian coast, a collection of eight short stories featuring the young Inspector Montalbano. In 1980s Vigàta, a restless Inspector Montalbano brings his bold investigative style to eight enthralling cases. From jilted lovers and deadly family affairs to assassination attempts and murders in unexpected places, Death at Sea is the perfect collection to escape into Andrea Camilleri's unforgettable slice of Sicily.

 

 

 

 

 

If you have not seen it, the Italian TV series of Inspecto Montalbano mysteries with Luca Zingaretti as Salvo Montalbano is a lot of fun!

 

 

 

 

 

... and then there is Young Montalbano with Michele Riondino

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andrea Calogero Camilleri (6 September 1925 – 17 July 2019) was an Italian writer. Originally from Porto Empedocle, Sicily, Camilleri began university studies in the Faculty of Literature at the University of Palermo, but did not complete his degree. meanwhile publishing poems and short stories. From 1948 to 1950 he studied stage and film direction at the Silvio D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts (Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica) and began to take on work as a director and screenwriter, directing especially plays by Pirandello and Beckett. His parents knew, and were, reportedly, distant friends of, Pirandello, as he tells in his essay on Pirandello, Biography of the Changed Son. His most famous works, the Montalbano series, show many Pirandellian elements: for example, the wild olive tree that helps Montalbano think is on stage in his late work The Giants of the Mountain. With RAI, Camilleri worked on several TV productions, such as Le inchieste del commissario Maigret with Gino Cervi. In 1977 he returned to the Academy of Dramatic Arts, holding the chair of Film Direction and occupying it for 20 years. In 1978 Camilleri wrote his first novel Il Corso Delle Cose (The Way Things Go). This was followed by Un Filo di Fumo (A Thread of Smoke) in 1980. Neither of these works enjoyed any significant amount of popularity. In 1992, after a long pause of 12 years, Camilleri once more took up novel writing. A new book, La Stagione della Caccia (The Hunting Season) turned out to be a best-seller. In 1994 Camilleri published the first in a long series of novels: La forma dell'Acqua (The Shape of Water) featured the character of Inspector Montalbano, a fractious Sicilian detective in the police force of Vigàta, an imaginary Sicilian town. The series is written in Italian but with a substantial sprinkling of Sicilian phrases and grammar. The name Montalbano is a homage to the Spanish writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán; the similarities between Montalban's Pepe Carvalho and Camilleri's fictional detective are noteworthy. Both writers make use of their protagonists' gastronomic preferences. This feature provides an interesting quirk which has become something of a fad among his readership even in mainland Italy. The TV adaptation of Montalbano's adventures, starring Luca Zingaretti, further increased Camilleri's popularity to such a point that in 2003 Camilleri's home town, Porto Empedocle – on which Vigàta is modelled – took the extraordinary step of changing its official name to that of Porto Empedocle Vigàta, no doubt with an eye to capitalising on the tourism possibilities thrown up by the author's work. On his website, Camilleri refers to the engaging and multi-faceted character of Montalbano as a serial killer of characters, meaning that he has developed a life of his own and demands great attention from his author, to the demise of other potential books and different personages. Camilleri added that he writes a Montalbano novel every so often just so that the character will be appeased and allow him to work on other stories. In 2012, Camilleri's The Potter's Field (translated by Stephen Sartarelli) was announced as the winner of the 2012 Crime Writers' Association International Dagger. The announcement was made on 5 July 2012 at the awards ceremony held at One Birdcage Walk in London. In his last years Camilleri lived in Rome where he worked as a TV and theatre director. About 10 million copies of his novels have been sold to date and are becoming increasingly popular in the UK (where BBC Four broadcast the Montalbano TV series from mid-2011), Australia and North America. In addition to the degree of popularity brought him by the novels, Andrea Camilleri became even more of a media icon thanks to the parodies aired on an RAI radio show, where popular comedian, TV host and impressionist Fiorello presents him as a raspy voiced, caustic character, madly in love with cigarettes and smoking, since in Italy, Camilleri was well known for being a heavy smoker of cigarettes. He considered himself a non-militant atheist. On 17 June 2019, Camilleri suffered a heart attack. He was admitted to hospital in a critical condition. He died on 17 July 2019. He has been buried in the Protestant Cemetery of Rome.

 

Stephen Sartarelli is a poet and translator.

 

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Andrea Camilleri: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction by Lucia Rinaldi. Jefferson and London. 2012. McFarland & Company. 179 pages. paperback. 9780786446704. Front cover images: (inset) Portrait of Andrea Camilleri, pencil on cardboard, 30cm x 50cm, 2009, by Messina artist Pietro Bitto; sailboat - 2012, Shutterstock.

  

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

  

    This is the first comprehensive reference work in English dedicated to the writing of world-famous Italian mystery writer Andrea Camilleri. It includes entries on plots, characters, dates, literary motifs, and themes from the bestselling author’s detective stories and television crime dramas, with special attention given to the serialized policeman Inspector Salvo Montalbano, Camilleri’s most famous character. It also equips the reader with background information on Camilleri’s life and career and provides a guide to the writings of reviewers and critics.

 

 

LUCIA RINALDI is a teaching fellow at University College London, Department of Italian. Her main research interests are 20th-century Italian literature and culture, in particular crime fiction. She has published articles on Italian crime writers and is coeditor of ASSASSINATIONS AND MURDER IN MODERN ITALY: TRANSFORMATIONS IN SOCIETY AND CULTURE (2007).

 

 

 

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The Ripley novels of Patricia Highsmith

 

 

The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. New York. 1955. Coward-McCann. 252 pages. hardcover.

 

Tom Ripley is my favorite psychopath. Even though he is frighteningly amoral, it becomes hard not to root for him, even as he murders his best friend, engages in art forgery (committing a murder to cover it up), plays with the lives of others simply because he feels he was snubbed (and murders some of them of course), indulges in a lot of sexually ambiguous behavior, and engages in cat-and-mouse games with those who cross his path.

 

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

He was young and handsome with expensive tastes and no money. But he had a latent talent for crime and one summer in Italy he thought he saw a way of turning his skill into a tidy little fortune. It was a small matter of murdering his best friend; then assuming his identity and along with it, his carefree, money-cushioned life. A beautifully simple foolproof plan. it worked perfectly without a single hitch. Until one day one woman began to suspect the truth. And the talented Mr. Ripley learned that murder was just the bare beginning of evil.

 

 

 

 

Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith. Garden City. 1970. Doubelday. 275 pages.

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

This subtle, bone-chilling novel by an internationally renowned master of psychological suspense describes an amoral young man’s efforts to protect his interest in an elaborate, highly profitable art-forgery scheme-and the anxiety and terror that build as he is forced to take more and more drastic actions. ROTJEY UNDER GROUND is written with the immense skill and insight critics have acclaimed in Patricia Highsmith’s earlier novels. ‘Low-key, subtle, and profound,’ wrote J. M. Eldelstein in The New Republic, adding, ‘Her work should be among the classics of the genre.’ England’s The Spectator has praised her ‘dry wit and scrupulous psychological realism.’ And The New York Times Book Review called her work ‘often illuminating and always compelling.’

 

 

Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith. New York. May 1974. Knopf. 267 pages. 0394490053.

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

RIPLEY’S GAME brings back one of Miss Highsmith’s most intriguing protagonists - the energetic, amoral, overcivilized, undersensitized American, Tom Ripley, here playing dangerously with the fates of a mild-mannered Englishman and his appealing French wife. A chance meeting and a casual English snub cause Ripley to devise a plot that involves, finally, several murders, the Mafia, and a lot of money. With all her accustomed skill and psychological insight, Miss Highsmith reveals the peculiar seesaw thinking of those who commit deliberate murder, as the long chain of events set off by Ripley’s game ironically causes Ripley to become more feeling and human even as his victims become more ambiguous and morally unsure.

 

 

 

The Boy Who Followed Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Philadelphia. 1980. Lippincott & Crowell. 0690019114. 292 pages. 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

Patricia Highsmith, internationally acclaimed master of psychological suspense fiction, has written a deceptively quiet new novel as intricate and haunting as a shattered mirror. Moving from a luxurious Parisian country home to the glittery sexual underworld of Berlin to the elegant grounds of a multimillionaire’s Maine estate, THE BOY WHO FOLLOWED RIPLEY is a tender and terrifying exploration of trust and friendship between a young man with a guilty conscience and an older one who has learned to erase his own. Tom Ripley, expatriate American homme d’affaires, is leading a pleasant and unexceptional life with his rich French wife outside of Paris, until he befriends a sixteen-year-old American boy who appears in a local bar-cafe. As the boy’s true identity comes to light, Ripley finds himself harboring fugitive Frank Pierson, who declares himself responsible for the recent highly suspicious death of his crippled multimillionaire father. Should Tom Ripley believe him? In a tangled web of friendship and dependence, Ripley grows increasingly protective of the troubled youth. Chasing across Europe to Berlin, they evade a detective hired by the Pierson family, but not a band of kidnappers, who snatch Frank and demand an enormous ransom. After Ripley manages a daring rescue of the boy from one of Berlin’s hottest night spots, the two return to Paris and then to the Pierson family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, where their mutual trust and affection are tested in a desperate, devastating confrontation. Writing with a style and perceptive-ness often compared to the work of Graham Greene and John LeCarre, Patricia Highsmith gives us a supremely absorbing tale of love and hate, trust and fear-and life and death.

 

 

 

Ripley Under Water by Patricia Highsmith. New York. 1992. Knopf. 309 pages. 0679416773. October 1992.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

For more than four decades, Patricia Highsmith has developed her unique mastery of suspense-not least in her renowned cycle of novels featuring Tom Ripley. Now, with the fifth in that series and her first new novel in five years, she demonstrates yet again her ability, as Graham Greene wrote, ‘to create a world of her own, a world claustrophobic and irrational which we enter each time with a sense of personal danger. ’ Though his talent for evil has in no way diminished, Tom Ripley has aged, even mellowed. Now leading the good life in the French countryside, complete with chic wife and devoted housekeeper, he is more interested in his wine stores than the bloodstains on the cellar floor. Then a meddlesome American couple takes up residence in the same village. Though at first the Pritchards seem a mere curiosity, their taste as execrable as their manners, they are annoyingly well informed about incidents in Ripley’s past and almost smug about flaunting their knowledge. This, of course, disturbs the tranquility of the charmed, cultured life for which Tom has worked so hard, and he has no choice but to bedevil the Pritchards in return. Thus begins a spirited, sophisticated game of cat and mouse that leads to Tangier and London and back again, to the pond behind the Pritchards’ house. It is Ripley at his most suave and devious - and Patricia Highsmith in peak form. For her aficionados, RIPLEY UNDER WATER is utterly essential - and for readers new to her work, a spectacular introduction to ‘a natural novelist’ (John Gross, The New York Times). ‘Patricia Highsmith’s pet psychopath, Tom Ripley, began his career in THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY in 1955. when the rich Greenleaf family sent him to Italy to bring their wayward son Dickie back to the States. What Tom actually did was club Dickie to death in a fit of pique, lose the body at sea, and forge Dickie’s will in his favor. Tom got away with this, and has been getting away with murder ever since. ’ - The Independent (London). ‘For some obscure reason, one of our greatest modernist writers, Patricia Highsmith, has been thought of in her own land as a writer of thrillers. She is both. She is certainly one of the most interesting writers of this dismal century. ’ - Gore Vidal. ‘Patricia Highsmith is something more than a first-class novelist. She represents a hope for the future of civilization. ’ - Auberon Waugh. ‘Patricia Highsmith ‘s novels are disturbing. ’ - Terrence Rafferty, The New Yorker.

 

 

 

 

 

Born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1921, Patricia Highsmith spent much of her adult life in Switzerland and France. Educated at Barnard College, where she studied English, Latin, and Greek, she had her first novel, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, published in 1950 and saw it quickly made into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock. Despite receiving little recognition in her native land during her lifetime, Highsmith, the author of more than twenty books, won the O. Henry Memorial Award, The Edgar Allan Poe Award, Le Grand Prix de Littérarure Policière, and the Award of the Crime Writers’ Association of Great Britain. She died in Switzerland in 1995, and her literary archives are maintained in Berne.

 

 

 

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The Harlem crime novels of Chester Himes:

 

 

 

Himes, Chester. For Love of Imabelle. New York. 1957. Fawcett Gold Medal. 159 pages. paperback. Cover by M. Hooks.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

For her lovely, dusky body, murder was a cheap price to pay. “Don’t make me do it. Please don’t make me do it.” He knelt on the floor and clutched her about the knees. He’s like all the rest of them, she thought. She shook him free, pointed to the door and sent him out into the dawn and certain death. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Himes, Chester. The Real Cool Killers. New York. 1959. Avon Books. Paperback Original. 160 pages. paperback. T-328.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

A gun blast rocks the Harlem night. . . A big white man plows through the crowd, a drug-crazed hoodlum on his heels. . . Screams surround them and the crowds begin to follow. . . A teen-age gang wearing bright green turbans joins the chase, yelling encouragement to the fleeing man and his pursuer. . . Another shot echoes down the neon streets, and the white man pitches forward with a bullet in his head. . . His pursuer stands over him with a smoking gun, laughing fit to kill. . . Two detectives, Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones, arrive to wrap it up – and discover that the killer’s gun is loaded with blanks!. . . Thus begins another wild, lightning-fast, free-wheeling manhunt through the city that never sleeps – with the toughest pair of cops in fiction hot on the violence trail.

 

 

 

 

Himes, Chester. The Crazy Kill. New York. 1959. Avon Books. Paperback Original. 160 pages. paperback. T-357.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

This murder was a toughie to figure out. There were too many players, too many deals, too many cards missing. . . There was JOHNNY – he was king of a big Harlem gambling syndicate. He was away from home a lot and he worried about losing his queen. Her name was DULCY. She was true to Johnny, but even a queen gets lonesome, playing solitaire every night. . . CHINK CHARLIE was a fast moving knave. He figured a shuffle was due and maybe he’d land on top of the deck. . . DOLL BABY – a low little number, but well stacked. She didn’t care whose partner, she played with as long as she stayed in the game. . . ALAMENA – Johnny’s ex-wife. A discard who lay around hoping to get picked up again. . . And sitting on top of the whole deal were those two wild cards from Harlem homicide, Detectives Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones. They weren’t playing any game. They were hot after the joker who had dealt the dead man’s hand.

 

 

 

 

Himes, Chester. All Shot Up. New York. 1960. Avon Books. Paperback Original. 160 pages. paperback. T-434.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

IT WAS HAILING BULLETS IN HARLEM. . . and cold enough to embalm a corpse. Eight-count ‘em, eight-corpses, in fact. A gold Cadillac mowed down an old lady who was neither old nor a lady. Three guys kissed concrete outside an exotic bar while heisting fifty grand from a politician. Then Detectives Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones tore into the caper, well-oiled with bourbon and ready to roll down a crazy, brutal trail of violence, perversion and murder. Through the long, bloody weekend, skidding on ice and breathing fire, the freewheeling pair from Harlem Homicide dodged falling bodies as they closed the gap between them and sudden death.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Himes, Chester. The Big Gold Dream. New York. 1960. Avon Books. Paperback Original. 160 pages. paperback. Y-384.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

IT BEGAN WITH A DREAM. . . A dream about pies exploding with 100 dollar bills. The dreamer had faith . . . she believed it was a message from the Lord himself. So the dreamer went and played all she had on money row in the three biggest houses in Harlem. The number popped out like it was sent for. It was a hit for $36,000. Trouble was she tried to keep a secret. She hid the money. But nobody can keep money like that a secret. Not in Harlem. Before the loot even had time to settle in its hiding place every con artist, punk and pusher in the neighborhood was making plans to get it. When someone did find it, he was dead before he could count it. The killer had no luck either. Someone with a knife was waiting for him. But the money had disappeared. The hunt was on again, and the smell of fresh violence filled the air. Detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson know they had to move fast — before murder became an epidemic.

 

 

 

Himes, Chester. The Heat's On. New York. 1966. Putnam. 220 pages. hardcover.

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

The uproar started that hot night in Harlem when $3,000,000 worth of heroin went astray and Pinky, the giant albino, turned in a false fire alarm. Fire engines rolled. Tempers flared. Cops blew their tops. And Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger got suspended. For brutality, it was alleged. The heat rose a beat. Then an African got his throat cut. And Grave Digger got shot. The heat really was turned on. And before the chips are down, Coffin Ed swings into action, moving from joint to joint, brothel to brothel, revealing a monstrous downtown racket that put the heat on the whole of the melting pot.

 

 

 

 

Himes, Chester. Cotton Comes To Harlem. New York. 1965. Putnam. 223 pages. hardcover. 

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

Commenting on the series of which this is the latest work, the noted critic Anthony Boucher said: ‘Genuine gallows humor: grotesque, outrageous, sometimes shocking, and generally pretty wonderful.’ And you will agree when you meet Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, Negro detectives in Harlem, the scarred, tough heroes of this roller coaster tale of crime and violence. They are assigned to cover the Rev. Deke O’Malley (late of Atlanta’s pen) now pastor of Ham church, and sponsor of a ‘Back-to-Africa’ movement. Having collected $87,000 from his congregation, the money is promptly hijacked by masked white gunmen, with murder as one of the fringe effects, followed by an incredible chase in which, surprising to many Harlemites — and the reader — a bale of cotton becomes a prime consideration. In the course of this adventure we meet the ever patient Lieutenant Anderson; the Southern white Colonel Calhoun of Alabama; Deke’s girlfriend Iris, who might be said to possess some of the cobra’s less attractive features; and the irrepressible exotic night club dancer, Billie. In and out of the streets, byways, bars and dives of Harlem our two detectives wend their way, with their hard-shooting .38 revolvers on the alert as they search for the hijackers and the elusive Deke. Stoolies, hoods, junkies, winos and others are encountered along the way, but none proves quite so interesting a character as the old junk man, Uncle Bud, who happened to find a bale of cotton in the street. COTTON COMES TO HARLEM is rich in lively dialogue and robust humor—and breathtaking action. It is superbly plotted, and the idiom and sense of place are accurately captured. This novel was published in France last year, under the title, Retour en Afrique, and was hailed as entertainment in the best tradition of Hammett and Chandler.

 

 

 

Himes, Chester. Blind Man With a Pistol. New York. 1969. Morrow. 240 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Lawrence Ratzkin.

  
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‘A friend of mine, Phil Lomax, told me this story about a blind man with a pistol shooting at a man who had slapped him on a subway train and killing an innocent bystander peacefully reading his newspaper across the aisle and I thought, damn right, sounds just like today’s news, riots in the ghettos, war in Vietnam, masochistic doings in the Middle East. And then I thought of some of our loudmouthed leaders urging our vulnerable soul brothers on to getting themselves killed, and thought further that all unorganized violence is like a blind man with a pistol.’ Chester Himes speaking. Chester Himes, perhaps the most widely read Negro novelist in the world today and certainly the most original and visionary commentator on America’s racial turbulence. BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL, his latest novel, is considered by Chester Himes and by his publisher to be his most important work to date. In it, he tells the incredible story of a night and day (Nat Turner’s Day) in Harlem, while at the same time he fashions of the Negro plight in the United States a parable so timely as to be prophetic. His world-famous detectives, Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, find themselves looking for the elusive murderer of a white homosexual film producer, and in the process they move through a mad world of Brotherhood marches, Black Muslims, a family slaughter, Black Power riots, and terrible violence everywhere. Chester Himes has not only seen things-he has also seen into them, and he has come out not blind, as would most people, but with a vision. BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL, written with great wit and honesty, crowns a distinguished body of work.

 

 

 

 

Himes, Chester. Plan B. Jackson. 1993. University Of Mississippi Press. 0878056459. 1st American Appearance Of Chester Himes' Unfinished Novel . 204 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by John A. Langston.  

 

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Tomsson Black, political visionary, business genius, and underground revolutionary, plots to avenge injustice by instigating racial turmoil. The roots of racism extend far back into his ancestry, and persecution and suffering have affected many generations of his family. Tomsson’s own misfortunes are the impetus for him to found a criminal underworld whose ultimate purpose is the overflow of white society. This novel, the history of Tomsson Black and an indictment of racism in America, ends in apocalypse. It is Chester Himes’s ultimate statement about the destructive power of racism and his own personal fantasy of how the American Negro, through calculated acts of violence and martyrdom, could destroy the unequal system pervading American life. However, after reaching an ideological impasse, Himes, one of the angriest writers in the black protest movement, left this novel unfinished. After his death in Spain in 1984, a rumor persisted that he had left a final, unfinished Harlem story, in which he literally destroys both his Harlem backdrop and his heroes in a violent racial cataclysm. The manuscript, entitled PLAN B, is that novel. It was edited and published in France, where it was widely hailed as an unfinished masterpiece by readers and critics alike. This new edition, appearing for the first time in the United States, includes an introduction by Michel Fabre (The Sorbonne) and Robert E. Skinner (Xavier University), who have prepared PLAN B for publication.

 

 

    

      

 

 

 

Chester Bomar Himes (July 29, 1909 - November 12, 1984) was an American writer. His works include If He Hollers Let Him Go and a series of Harlem Detective novels. In 1958 he won France's Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. Chester Himes was born in Jefferson City, Missouri, on July 29, 1909. He grew up in a middle-class home in Missouri. When Himes was about 12 years old, his father took a teaching job at Branch Normal College (now University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff), and soon a tragedy took place that would profoundly shape Himes's view of race relations. He had misbehaved and his mother made him sit out a gunpowder demonstration that he and his brother, Joseph Jr., were supposed to conduct during a school assembly. Working alone, Joseph mixed the chemicals; they exploded in his face. Rushed to the nearest hospital, the blinded boy was refused treatment. ‘That one moment in my life hurt me as much as all the others put together,’ Himes wrote in The Quality of Hurt. ‘I loved my brother. I had never been separated from him and that moment was shocking, shattering, and terrifying....We pulled into the emergency entrance of a white people's hospital. White clad doctors and attendants appeared. I remember sitting in the back seat with Joe watching the pantomime being enacted in the car's bright lights. A white man was refusing; my father was pleading. Dejectedly my father turned away; he was crying like a baby. My mother was fumbling in her handbag for a handkerchief; I hoped it was for a pistol.’ Chester's parents were Joseph Sandy Himes and Estelle Bomar Himes; his father was a peripatetic black college professor of industrial trades and his mother was a teacher at Scotia Seminary prior to marriage; the family eventually settled in Cleveland, Ohio. His parents' marriage was unhappy and eventually ended in divorce. Himes attended East High School in Cleveland, Ohio. While he was a freshman at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, he was expelled for playing a prank. In late 1928 he was arrested and sentenced to jail and hard labor for 20 to 25 years for armed robbery and sent to Ohio Penitentiary. In prison, he wrote short stories and had them published in national magazines. Himes stated that writing in prison and being published was a way to earn respect from guards and fellow inmates, as well as to avoid violence. His first stories appeared in 1931 in The Bronzeman and, starting in 1934, in Esquire. His story ‘To What Red Hell’ (published in Esquire in 1934) as well as to his novel Cast the First Stone - only much later republished unabridged as Yesterday Will Make You Cry (1998) - dealt with the catastrophic 1930 prison fire Himes witnessed at Ohio Penitentiary in 1930. In 1934 Himes was transferred to London Prison Farm and in April 1936 he was released on parole into his mother's custody. Following his release he worked at part-time jobs and at the same time continued to write. During this period he came in touch with Langston Hughes, who facilitated Himes's contacts with the world of literature and publishing. In 1936 Himes married Jean Johnson. In the 1940s Himes spent time in Los Angeles, working as a screenwriter but also producing two novels, If He Hollers Let Him Go and The Lonely Crusade that charted the experiences of the wave of black in-migrants, drawn by the city's defense industries, and their dealings with the established black community, fellow workers, unions and management. He also provided an analysis of the Zoot Suit Riots for The Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP. By the 1950s Himes had decided to settle in France permanently, a country he liked in part due to his popularity in literary circles. In Paris, Himes' was the contemporary of the political cartoonist Oliver Harrington and fellow expatriate writers Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and William Gardner Smith. It was in Paris in the late 1950s that Chester met his second wife Lesley Himes, née Packard, when she went to interview him. She was a journalist at the Herald Tribune, where she wrote her own fashion column, ‘Monica’. He described her as ‘Irish-English with blue-gray eyes and very good looking’, he also saw her courage and resilience, Chester said to Lesley, ‘You’re the only true color-blind person I’ve ever met in my life.’ After he suffered a stroke, in 1959, Lesley quit her job and nursed him back to health. She cared for him for the rest of his life, and worked with him as his informal editor, proofreader, confidante and, as the director, Van Peebles dubbed her, ‘his watchdog’. After a long engagement, they were married in 1978. Lesley and Chester faced adversities as a mixed race couple but they prevailed. Theirs was a life lived with an unparallelled passion and great humor. Their circle of political colleagues and creative friends included not only such towering figures as Langston Hughes and Richard Wright; it also included figures such as Malcolm X, Carl Van Vechten, Picasso, Jean Miotte, Ollie Harrington, Nikki Giovanni and Ishmael Reed. Bohemian life in Paris would in turn lead them to the South of France and finally on to Spain, where they lived until Chester’s death in 1984. In 1969 Himes moved to Moraira, Spain, where he died in 1984 from Parkinson's Disease. He is buried at Benissa cemetery.

 

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Jackson, Lawrence P.. The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934–1960. Princeton. 2010. Princeton University Press. 9780691141350. 65 halftones. 579 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration - Harlem Quarterly cover 1950. Billops-Hatch Collection, courtesy of the Manuscript Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University. Jacket design by Leslie Flis.  

 

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

 

A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF AN IMPORTANT—YET NEGLECTED—ERA IN AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE ‘This is a landmark work in the history of African American Studies and American intellectual history. Writing with verve, Jackson brings to life a large cast of characters and traces an ongoing conversation among the writers and critics of this period. This book is likely to become a model for a new generation of scholars, both for the breadth of its engagement and the depth of its archival research.’ —Werner Sollors, Harvard University. The Indignant Generation is the first narrative history of the neglected but essential period of African American literature between the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Era. The years between these two indispensable epochs saw the communal rise of Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ralph Ellison, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and many other influential black writers. While these individuals have been duly celebrated, little attention has been paid to the political and artistic milieu in which they produced their greatest works. With this commanding study, Lawrence Jackson recalls the lost history of a crucial era. Looking at the tumultuous decades surrounding World War II, Jackson restores the ‘indignant’ quality to a generation of African American writers shaped by Jim Crow segregation, the Great Depression, the growth of American Communism, and an international wave of decolonization. He also reveals how artistic collectives in New York, Chicago, and Washington, DC, fostered a sense of destiny and belonging among diverse and disenchanted peoples. As Jackson shows through contemporary documents, the years that brought us Their Eyes Were Watching God, Native Son, and Invisible Man also saw the rise of African American literary criticism—by both black and white critics. Fully exploring the cadre of key African American writers who triumphed in spite of segregation, The Indignant Generation paints a vivid portrait of American intellectual and artistic life in the mid-twentieth century.

 

Lawrence P. Jackson teaches English and African American studies at Emory University. He is the author of Ralph Ellison: Emergence of a Genius and a forthcoming biography of Chester Himes.

 

 

 

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Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York. 2012. New Press. 9781595581037. With a new foreword by Cornel West. 312 pages. hardcover. Cover design by Pollen, New York. 

 

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WINNER, NAACP IMAGE AWARD. WINNER, CONSTITUTIONAL COMMENTARY AWARD. "Devastating.' - Forbes Magazine. "An instant classic." - CORNEL WEST. "The bible of a social movement." - San Francisco Chronicle. "[An] extraordinary book." - MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN. 'Striking... Alexander deserves to be compared to Du Bois in her ability to distill and lay out as mighty human drama a complex argument and history." - The New York Review of Books. Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as "brave and bold," this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, this book is a "call to action.' Called "stunning" by Pulitzer Prize—winning historian David Levering Lewis, "invaluable" by the Daily KOS, "explosive" by Kirkus, and "profoundly necessary" by the Miami Herald, this updated and revised paperback edition of The New Jim Crow, now with a foreword by Cornel West, is a must-read for all people of conscience.

 

MICHELLE ALEXANDER is an associate professor of law at Ohio State University and holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Formerly the director of the ACLU Racial Justice. Project in Northern California, Alexander served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun.

 

CORNEL WEST is the Class of 1943 University Professor at Princeton University.

 

 

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