Zenosbooks

Details

Category: Favorites

Hits: 1534

Greenfinger by Julian Rathbone. New York. 1987. Viking Press. 0670815888. 246 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Neil Stuart. Jacket illustration by Russell Farrell.  

 

 

DESCRIPTION - In an alleyway in San Jose, Costa Rica, a botanist is shot to pieces, and the specimens he is carrying are stolen. A primitive but thriving coffee collective in the mountains runs into sudden opposition from the authorities. An agricultural field station in Nicaragua is wiped out in a surprise attack, and three years' worth of research is destroyed. These events and the brutal killings that follow are the consequences of a covert operation mounted by Greenfinger Inc., a subsidiary of the giant Associated Foods International. A contract killer and a commando group trained on $5 lines have been given their orders: Destroy ‘Ldt,' a new coffee hybrid, and anyone who has knowledge of it. When Kit Carter, an agricultural economist for the United Nations Agricultural and Food Organization, fights back to save the collective, he is trapped by the ugly truths of multinational greed. It is his beautiful and vibrant wife, Esther, surely one of the most unusual and provocative characters in recent fiction, who must face the chilling forces of evil alone. GREENFINGER is thrilling entertainment, an ingenious adventure that leads the reader from the back-alley slums of Central America up into the eerie canopy of the tropical rain forest. A novelist of international distinction, Julian Rathbone once again proves himself a master of suspense, a writer whom The Daily Telegraph has called ‘one of the very best storytellers around.'

 

 

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Julian Christopher Rathbone (10 February 1935 - 28 February 2008) was an English novelist. Julian Rathbone attended Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary of Bamber Gascoigne and Sylvia Plath. At Cambridge he took tutorials with FR Leavis, for whom, without having ever been what might be described as a 'Leavisite', he retained an abiding respect. After university Rathbone lived in Turkey for three years, making a living by teaching English. While in Turkey he heard that his father had been killed in a road accident at the age of sixty, an event to which Rathbone would return when himself the same age, in Blame Hitler. On his return to England jobs in various London schools were followed by the post of Head of English at the comprehensive school in Bognor Regis, West Sussex. Having originally aspired to be an actor or a painter, Rathbone had also taken up writing and by the end of the 1960s had had three novels published, all set in Turkey and informed by a background of which he had intimate knowledge. In 1973 Rathbone finally gave up teaching and left for Spain with the woman who would become his wife and lifelong companion, determined from then on to make his living by writing. Back in England and after some financially lean years Rathbone found his tenacity beginning to pay off. Booker Prize short-listings in 1976 and 1979 brought critical recognition, and although major commercial success remained elusive Rathbone's work appeared regularly, gaining a loyal readership and increasing popularity both at home and abroad. His novels continued to display interests and talents across several genres, from mainstream through thrillers to historical fiction. His novel of 1066, The Last English King, published 1997, achieved considerable commercial success and has been optioned for film several times without having yet made it to the screen. As a writer of non-fiction Rathbone made a lasting and original contribution to Wellington and Peninsular War studies with his Wellington's War, 1984. Various threads run through Rathbone's novels over their forty-year span. Standing firmly in the 19th Century tradition with its belief in the primacy of the writer's imagination and its consequent freedom to explore human life in all its aspects, Rathbone always refused to be tied to a single genre, time or place or character in undertaking this exploration. An ostensible thriller may be just as much a study of relationships, an apparently mainstream novel an investigation of crime, a work of historical fiction a meditation on contemporary issues. In blurring and blending genres in this way, for three decades or more in which the book market became increasingly obsessed with the typecasting and branding of books and their authors, Rathbone can be seen as having explored and questioned the nature of genre itself, its scope and limitations. Wherever the definitions of a particular genre threatened to restrict his enquiry into the human condition, Rathbone never hesitated to push it into wider territory. In a climate of increasing specialisation expected of novelists by the marketplace, this was an unfashionable approach to take, with arguably a heavy commercial cost over the years as Rathbone went his own way and refused to seek or accept any label or badge of identification which might increase sales but confine his activities as a writer. Rathbone in fact created four characters who appear in more than one of his books, permitting a certain grouping around each of them while never taking over the heterogeneous spirit of his work or deflecting him from the pursuit of wider fictional interests. First was Inspector Jan Argand (The Euro-Killers, Base Case, Watching The Detectives). Then the ‘Joseph' of Joseph (Booker nomination 1979) makes his reappearance as Charlie Boylan in A Very English Agent and later as Eddie Bosham in Birth Of A Nation, as Rathbone follows the thread of events from the war in the Peninsula through the world of German exiles taking refuge in early Victorian London and on to the early years of the modern USA. Two books for Serpent's Tail - Accidents Will Happen and Brandenburg Concerto - focused on Renate Fechter, head of a German squad of Eco-police. Then finally Rathbone created a British private investigator, Chris Shovelin, for the two recent books Homage and As Bad As It Gets for Allison and Busby. Although diverse and strong characters in themselves, none of these four ever seemed likely to take over the oeuvre as a whole. Rathbone remained committed to diversity of inspiration rather than the formulaic approach to which concentration on a single character can lead. Leavis, although Rathbone never shared his cultural aridity, was a long-term presence in the novelist's background as a man who insisted on the power and importance of imaginative literature. In A Last Resort, written around the time of Leavis's death and giving a brilliant portrayal of a Britain making itself ripe for Thatcherism, the ferocious Cambridge don makes a brief appearance in the intellectual life of a gifted English student at a school not unlike the one Rathbone had taught in until a few years previously. As a writer perhaps the nearest Rathbone came to an acknowledged antecedent was Graham Greene, whose weaving of the thriller and mainstream strands of fiction, together with in-depth exploration of wider spiritual and political issues often set in foreign locations, clearly struck many chords both with Rathbone's vocational subject-matter and belief in the novelist's ability to address himself to all aspects of human life on as broad a front as he likes, with the finished work of fiction as the only credential he needs. Greene remained an icon with Rathbone throughout his writing life, as did the different figure of James Joyce, object of Rathbone's greatest reverence although rarely exercising any overt influence in his writing. A Last Resort is probably the most Joycean of Rathbone's books, in its use of accumulation of mundane detail to build up an almost surreal portrait of a country whose identity is dissolving in front of its face. To Joyce himself Rathbone paid the ultimate compliment of constantly rereading without seeking to imitate. Rathbone was a man of what might be called the classic Left. After public school and Cambridge three years in Turkey told him all he needed to know about poverty, and the next decade and a half of teaching in British secondary schools made him expert in the class system of his own country. His politics were those of tolerance and libertarianism, with an innate distrust of self-serving hierarchies and a cynicism towards power-structures and their manipulation of the world, in particular the world of the helpless. In his fiction, much influenced by Greene, he always made social and historical context part of the weave of the narrative. Twenty years ago, in Zdt and The Pandora Option, he dealt with food as a new weapon in the armoury of the superpowers, and in the early 1990s (Sand Blind) with the capacity of those same superpowers to fabricate wars in the interests of their own technologies and consumer needs. In Trajectories (1998) he presents a nightmare vision of Britain in 2035 which seems more recognisable and likely with every year that passes. Over a writing career of forty years, during which the world might be said to have changed out of recognition, it is notable how few of Rathbone's preoccupations and perceptions have dated, while many have been prescient and remain as relevant as they ever were. In his latest book The Mutiny, dealing with the Indian rising against British rule in 1857, the same commitment to clarity of vision is evident, an equal openness to all experiences and forces involved in the events of the time, which continues to mark Rathbone down as unashamedly in the line of the great novelists of the 19th Century. The critic who took Rathbone to task for appearing to claim a superiority of approach to the professional historian in dealing with such contentious historical material was raising a question which Rathbone's whole career, and The Mutiny itself, was dedicated to answering. For a man of wide intellectual interests Rathbone produced relatively little outside his long list of novels. Much travelled, and loving foreign places, he always aspired to produce volumes of travel writing, but nothing in this direction ever came to fruition commercially. His one non-fictional publication was Wellington's War (1984), product of a fascination with Wellington which dated back to schooldays. Following within fifteen years of Elizabeth Longford's two-volume biography, which re-established Wellington as a subject for serious study, Rathbone's book is a radical and original departure from the normal run of biographical accounts. Based on detailed research into both Wellington's collected correspondence and the battlefields of the Peninsular War, it counterpoints extracts from the letters with Rathbone's own elucidations and comments. As well as uniquely conveying the immediacy of events through Wellington's thought-processes and human voice, Wellington's War does more than any other book on the subject to illustrate the dimension and brilliance of Wellington's genius. The Duke himself has a habit of cropping up in various of Rathbone's fictions, notably in Joseph and A Very English Agent and, more hauntingly, in Blame Hitler, the novel in which Rathbone writes about his own father. Rathbone described his own interest in Wellington as ‘probably Oedipal‘, and the Duke as ‘the ultimate father-figure'. Wellington's War remains unique not only in Rathbone's own work but also in the growing contemporary literature on Wellington.

 

 

 

See if zenosbooks.com has any books for sale by this author

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

Details

Category: Favorites

Hits: 1454

The Mutiny by Julian Rathbone. London. 2007. Little Brown. 9780316731133. 447 pages. hardcover. Cover design by Two Associates.  

 

 

DESCRIPTION - For its British population, the India that swelters in the late spring of 1857 is a place of amateur theatricals, horseracing and flirtations under the aegis of the powerful East India Company. Not long arrived in this exotic colony is pretty Sophie Hardcastle, newly married but already disillusioned enough with her soldier husband to have fallen under the spell of a dashing and mysterious lieutenant, Bruce Farquhar. But a brutal awakening lies in store for the complacent British: one May night, after thirty years of abuse, the East India Company's native soldiers rise against their British officers. Thus begins the most savage episode in our imperial history. In the chaos that follows the uprising, Sophie's infant son Stephen becomes one of a dwindling band of lost children wandering the war-torn plains in the care of the Hardcastles' desperate native maid, Lavanya. As Sophie and her friend Catherine search for their children they find themselves bearing appalled witness to atrocities on both sides, including the massacre of British women and children in Cawnpore and the hideous reprisals that follow. Moving, sombre and thrilling, Rathbone's tale is told on a grand scale, ranging from the Cannings in Government House to the heroism of the humblest soldiers and peasants. It is as exhilarating as any Victorian adventure story, and yet, with its unflinching. examination of religious fanaticism and the horrors of war, The Mutiny also carries a powerful message for the modern world.

 

 

 

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Julian Christopher Rathbone (10 February 1935 - 28 February 2008) was an English novelist. Julian Rathbone attended Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary of Bamber Gascoigne and Sylvia Plath. At Cambridge he took tutorials with FR Leavis, for whom, without having ever been what might be described as a 'Leavisite', he retained an abiding respect. After university Rathbone lived in Turkey for three years, making a living by teaching English. While in Turkey he heard that his father had been killed in a road accident at the age of sixty, an event to which Rathbone would return when himself the same age, in Blame Hitler. On his return to England jobs in various London schools were followed by the post of Head of English at the comprehensive school in Bognor Regis, West Sussex. Having originally aspired to be an actor or a painter, Rathbone had also taken up writing and by the end of the 1960s had had three novels published, all set in Turkey and informed by a background of which he had intimate knowledge. In 1973 Rathbone finally gave up teaching and left for Spain with the woman who would become his wife and lifelong companion, determined from then on to make his living by writing. Back in England and after some financially lean years Rathbone found his tenacity beginning to pay off. Booker Prize short-listings in 1976 and 1979 brought critical recognition, and although major commercial success remained elusive Rathbone's work appeared regularly, gaining a loyal readership and increasing popularity both at home and abroad. His novels continued to display interests and talents across several genres, from mainstream through thrillers to historical fiction. His novel of 1066, The Last English King, published 1997, achieved considerable commercial success and has been optioned for film several times without having yet made it to the screen. As a writer of non-fiction Rathbone made a lasting and original contribution to Wellington and Peninsular War studies with his Wellington's War, 1984. Various threads run through Rathbone's novels over their forty-year span. Standing firmly in the 19th Century tradition with its belief in the primacy of the writer's imagination and its consequent freedom to explore human life in all its aspects, Rathbone always refused to be tied to a single genre, time or place or character in undertaking this exploration. An ostensible thriller may be just as much a study of relationships, an apparently mainstream novel an investigation of crime, a work of historical fiction a meditation on contemporary issues. In blurring and blending genres in this way, for three decades or more in which the book market became increasingly obsessed with the typecasting and branding of books and their authors, Rathbone can be seen as having explored and questioned the nature of genre itself, its scope and limitations. Wherever the definitions of a particular genre threatened to restrict his enquiry into the human condition, Rathbone never hesitated to push it into wider territory. In a climate of increasing specialisation expected of novelists by the marketplace, this was an unfashionable approach to take, with arguably a heavy commercial cost over the years as Rathbone went his own way and refused to seek or accept any label or badge of identification which might increase sales but confine his activities as a writer. Rathbone in fact created four characters who appear in more than one of his books, permitting a certain grouping around each of them while never taking over the heterogeneous spirit of his work or deflecting him from the pursuit of wider fictional interests. First was Inspector Jan Argand (The Euro-Killers, Base Case, Watching The Detectives). Then the ‘Joseph' of Joseph (Booker nomination 1979) makes his reappearance as Charlie Boylan in A Very English Agent and later as Eddie Bosham in Birth Of A Nation, as Rathbone follows the thread of events from the war in the Peninsula through the world of German exiles taking refuge in early Victorian London and on to the early years of the modern USA. Two books for Serpent's Tail - Accidents Will Happen and Brandenburg Concerto - focused on Renate Fechter, head of a German squad of Eco-police. Then finally Rathbone created a British private investigator, Chris Shovelin, for the two recent books Homage and As Bad As It Gets for Allison and Busby. Although diverse and strong characters in themselves, none of these four ever seemed likely to take over the oeuvre as a whole. Rathbone remained committed to diversity of inspiration rather than the formulaic approach to which concentration on a single character can lead. Leavis, although Rathbone never shared his cultural aridity, was a long-term presence in the novelist's background as a man who insisted on the power and importance of imaginative literature. In A Last Resort, written around the time of Leavis's death and giving a brilliant portrayal of a Britain making itself ripe for Thatcherism, the ferocious Cambridge don makes a brief appearance in the intellectual life of a gifted English student at a school not unlike the one Rathbone had taught in until a few years previously. As a writer perhaps the nearest Rathbone came to an acknowledged antecedent was Graham Greene, whose weaving of the thriller and mainstream strands of fiction, together with in-depth exploration of wider spiritual and political issues often set in foreign locations, clearly struck many chords both with Rathbone's vocational subject-matter and belief in the novelist's ability to address himself to all aspects of human life on as broad a front as he likes, with the finished work of fiction as the only credential he needs. Greene remained an icon with Rathbone throughout his writing life, as did the different figure of James Joyce, object of Rathbone's greatest reverence although rarely exercising any overt influence in his writing. A Last Resort is probably the most Joycean of Rathbone's books, in its use of accumulation of mundane detail to build up an almost surreal portrait of a country whose identity is dissolving in front of its face. To Joyce himself Rathbone paid the ultimate compliment of constantly rereading without seeking to imitate. Rathbone was a man of what might be called the classic Left. After public school and Cambridge three years in Turkey told him all he needed to know about poverty, and the next decade and a half of teaching in British secondary schools made him expert in the class system of his own country. His politics were those of tolerance and libertarianism, with an innate distrust of self-serving hierarchies and a cynicism towards power-structures and their manipulation of the world, in particular the world of the helpless. In his fiction, much influenced by Greene, he always made social and historical context part of the weave of the narrative. Twenty years ago, in Zdt and The Pandora Option, he dealt with food as a new weapon in the armoury of the superpowers, and in the early 1990s (Sand Blind) with the capacity of those same superpowers to fabricate wars in the interests of their own technologies and consumer needs. In Trajectories (1998) he presents a nightmare vision of Britain in 2035 which seems more recognisable and likely with every year that passes. Over a writing career of forty years, during which the world might be said to have changed out of recognition, it is notable how few of Rathbone's preoccupations and perceptions have dated, while many have been prescient and remain as relevant as they ever were. In his latest book The Mutiny, dealing with the Indian rising against British rule in 1857, the same commitment to clarity of vision is evident, an equal openness to all experiences and forces involved in the events of the time, which continues to mark Rathbone down as unashamedly in the line of the great novelists of the 19th Century. The critic who took Rathbone to task for appearing to claim a superiority of approach to the professional historian in dealing with such contentious historical material was raising a question which Rathbone's whole career, and The Mutiny itself, was dedicated to answering. For a man of wide intellectual interests Rathbone produced relatively little outside his long list of novels. Much travelled, and loving foreign places, he always aspired to produce volumes of travel writing, but nothing in this direction ever came to fruition commercially. His one non-fictional publication was Wellington's War (1984), product of a fascination with Wellington which dated back to schooldays. Following within fifteen years of Elizabeth Longford's two-volume biography, which re-established Wellington as a subject for serious study, Rathbone's book is a radical and original departure from the normal run of biographical accounts. Based on detailed research into both Wellington's collected correspondence and the battlefields of the Peninsular War, it counterpoints extracts from the letters with Rathbone's own elucidations and comments. As well as uniquely conveying the immediacy of events through Wellington's thought-processes and human voice, Wellington's War does more than any other book on the subject to illustrate the dimension and brilliance of Wellington's genius. The Duke himself has a habit of cropping up in various of Rathbone's fictions, notably in Joseph and A Very English Agent and, more hauntingly, in Blame Hitler, the novel in which Rathbone writes about his own father. Rathbone described his own interest in Wellington as ‘probably Oedipal‘, and the Duke as ‘the ultimate father-figure'. Wellington's War remains unique not only in Rathbone's own work but also in the growing contemporary literature on Wellington.

 

 

 

See if zenosbooks.com has any books for sale by this author

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

---

Details

Category: Favorites

Hits: 1682

Carnival by Julian Rathbone. New York. 1976. St Martin's Press. 221 pages. hardcover. Jacket by Milas. 

 

DESCRIPTION - Azure-winged magpies are beautiful and rare. Disturbed by a pair of them on a Spanish hill-side near the Portuguese frontier, Colin Shedfield and his beautiful young mistress follow the flight of the birds across a valley  - and discover four men digging a grave. A Spanish trades unionist is assassinated and, in the wake, come more killings, betrayals, cross and double-cross, in all of which Colin and his friends Weller and Buchan become unwillingly involved as the confused politics of Spain and Portugal flare into violence in a small border town. Julian Rathbone's latest book brings the potentially explosive situation in Spain today vividly and thrillingly alive, set as it is in a crowded town en fiesta, a pulsating background which draws the inevitable contrast between the dignity and grace of the bullfight and the squalor of political murder. And in Weller and Buchan are two splendid characters whose courage, humour and zest for life represent qualities refreshingly unfashionable. CARNIVAL ranks as one of Rathbone's best books in the same vein as KILL CURE and BLOODY MARVELLOUS.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Julian Christopher Rathbone (10 February 1935 - 28 February 2008) was an English novelist. Julian Rathbone attended Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary of Bamber Gascoigne and Sylvia Plath. At Cambridge he took tutorials with FR Leavis, for whom, without having ever been what might be described as a 'Leavisite', he retained an abiding respect. After university Rathbone lived in Turkey for three years, making a living by teaching English. While in Turkey he heard that his father had been killed in a road accident at the age of sixty, an event to which Rathbone would return when himself the same age, in Blame Hitler. On his return to England jobs in various London schools were followed by the post of Head of English at the comprehensive school in Bognor Regis, West Sussex. Having originally aspired to be an actor or a painter, Rathbone had also taken up writing and by the end of the 1960s had had three novels published, all set in Turkey and informed by a background of which he had intimate knowledge. In 1973 Rathbone finally gave up teaching and left for Spain with the woman who would become his wife and lifelong companion, determined from then on to make his living by writing. Back in England and after some financially lean years Rathbone found his tenacity beginning to pay off. Booker Prize short-listings in 1976 and 1979 brought critical recognition, and although major commercial success remained elusive Rathbone's work appeared regularly, gaining a loyal readership and increasing popularity both at home and abroad. His novels continued to display interests and talents across several genres, from mainstream through thrillers to historical fiction. His novel of 1066, The Last English King, published 1997, achieved considerable commercial success and has been optioned for film several times without having yet made it to the screen. As a writer of non-fiction Rathbone made a lasting and original contribution to Wellington and Peninsular War studies with his Wellington's War, 1984. Various threads run through Rathbone's novels over their forty-year span. Standing firmly in the 19th Century tradition with its belief in the primacy of the writer's imagination and its consequent freedom to explore human life in all its aspects, Rathbone always refused to be tied to a single genre, time or place or character in undertaking this exploration. An ostensible thriller may be just as much a study of relationships, an apparently mainstream novel an investigation of crime, a work of historical fiction a meditation on contemporary issues. In blurring and blending genres in this way, for three decades or more in which the book market became increasingly obsessed with the typecasting and branding of books and their authors, Rathbone can be seen as having explored and questioned the nature of genre itself, its scope and limitations. Wherever the definitions of a particular genre threatened to restrict his enquiry into the human condition, Rathbone never hesitated to push it into wider territory. In a climate of increasing specialisation expected of novelists by the marketplace, this was an unfashionable approach to take, with arguably a heavy commercial cost over the years as Rathbone went his own way and refused to seek or accept any label or badge of identification which might increase sales but confine his activities as a writer. Rathbone in fact created four characters who appear in more than one of his books, permitting a certain grouping around each of them while never taking over the heterogeneous spirit of his work or deflecting him from the pursuit of wider fictional interests. First was Inspector Jan Argand (The Euro-Killers, Base Case, Watching The Detectives). Then the ‘Joseph' of Joseph (Booker nomination 1979) makes his reappearance as Charlie Boylan in A Very English Agent and later as Eddie Bosham in Birth Of A Nation, as Rathbone follows the thread of events from the war in the Peninsula through the world of German exiles taking refuge in early Victorian London and on to the early years of the modern USA. Two books for Serpent's Tail - Accidents Will Happen and Brandenburg Concerto - focused on Renate Fechter, head of a German squad of Eco-police. Then finally Rathbone created a British private investigator, Chris Shovelin, for the two recent books Homage and As Bad As It Gets for Allison and Busby. Although diverse and strong characters in themselves, none of these four ever seemed likely to take over the oeuvre as a whole. Rathbone remained committed to diversity of inspiration rather than the formulaic approach to which concentration on a single character can lead. Leavis, although Rathbone never shared his cultural aridity, was a long-term presence in the novelist's background as a man who insisted on the power and importance of imaginative literature. In A Last Resort, written around the time of Leavis's death and giving a brilliant portrayal of a Britain making itself ripe for Thatcherism, the ferocious Cambridge don makes a brief appearance in the intellectual life of a gifted English student at a school not unlike the one Rathbone had taught in until a few years previously. As a writer perhaps the nearest Rathbone came to an acknowledged antecedent was Graham Greene, whose weaving of the thriller and mainstream strands of fiction, together with in-depth exploration of wider spiritual and political issues often set in foreign locations, clearly struck many chords both with Rathbone's vocational subject-matter and belief in the novelist's ability to address himself to all aspects of human life on as broad a front as he likes, with the finished work of fiction as the only credential he needs. Greene remained an icon with Rathbone throughout his writing life, as did the different figure of James Joyce, object of Rathbone's greatest reverence although rarely exercising any overt influence in his writing. A Last Resort is probably the most Joycean of Rathbone's books, in its use of accumulation of mundane detail to build up an almost surreal portrait of a country whose identity is dissolving in front of its face. To Joyce himself Rathbone paid the ultimate compliment of constantly rereading without seeking to imitate. Rathbone was a man of what might be called the classic Left. After public school and Cambridge three years in Turkey told him all he needed to know about poverty, and the next decade and a half of teaching in British secondary schools made him expert in the class system of his own country. His politics were those of tolerance and libertarianism, with an innate distrust of self-serving hierarchies and a cynicism towards power-structures and their manipulation of the world, in particular the world of the helpless. In his fiction, much influenced by Greene, he always made social and historical context part of the weave of the narrative. Twenty years ago, in Zdt and The Pandora Option, he dealt with food as a new weapon in the armoury of the superpowers, and in the early 1990s (Sand Blind) with the capacity of those same superpowers to fabricate wars in the interests of their own technologies and consumer needs. In Trajectories (1998) he presents a nightmare vision of Britain in 2035 which seems more recognisable and likely with every year that passes. Over a writing career of forty years, during which the world might be said to have changed out of recognition, it is notable how few of Rathbone's preoccupations and perceptions have dated, while many have been prescient and remain as relevant as they ever were. In his latest book The Mutiny, dealing with the Indian rising against British rule in 1857, the same commitment to clarity of vision is evident, an equal openness to all experiences and forces involved in the events of the time, which continues to mark Rathbone down as unashamedly in the line of the great novelists of the 19th Century. The critic who took Rathbone to task for appearing to claim a superiority of approach to the professional historian in dealing with such contentious historical material was raising a question which Rathbone's whole career, and The Mutiny itself, was dedicated to answering. For a man of wide intellectual interests Rathbone produced relatively little outside his long list of novels. Much travelled, and loving foreign places, he always aspired to produce volumes of travel writing, but nothing in this direction ever came to fruition commercially. His one non-fictional publication was Wellington's War (1984), product of a fascination with Wellington which dated back to schooldays. Following within fifteen years of Elizabeth Longford's two-volume biography, which re-established Wellington as a subject for serious study, Rathbone's book is a radical and original departure from the normal run of biographical accounts. Based on detailed research into both Wellington's collected correspondence and the battlefields of the Peninsular War, it counterpoints extracts from the letters with Rathbone's own elucidations and comments. As well as uniquely conveying the immediacy of events through Wellington's thought-processes and human voice, Wellington's War does more than any other book on the subject to illustrate the dimension and brilliance of Wellington's genius. The Duke himself has a habit of cropping up in various of Rathbone's fictions, notably in Joseph and A Very English Agent and, more hauntingly, in Blame Hitler, the novel in which Rathbone writes about his own father. Rathbone described his own interest in Wellington as ‘probably Oedipal‘, and the Duke as ‘the ultimate father-figure'. Wellington's War remains unique not only in Rathbone's own work but also in the growing contemporary literature on Wellington.

 

 

 

See if zenosbooks.com has any books for sale by this author

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

Details

Category: Favorites

Hits: 1440

Trip Trap by Julian Rathbone. New York. 1972. St Martin's Press. 224 pages. hardcover. Jacket by JOHN RILEY.  

 

 

DESCRIPTION - From the furrows the Turkish peasant scratches into the thin soil of his bare mountains can come such things as excite men to break all the restraints of Law and Civilization. For the peasant's plough may turn over the coveted remains of ancient cultures, and into the furrow he may cast the seed of papaver somniferum - the Opium Poppy. Of all this Edward Amberley is unaware - indeed this vain, immature but middle-aged English businessman is unaware of almost everything except the simpler operations of the market place, and he is an easy prey for the mysterious and seductive Lilak Adler: yet she, too, is the tool of cunning men. To extricate himself from the indescribably awful mess he gets himself into is obviously beyond Amberley's powers, but fortunately he is not alone. He has allies - the reserved but beautiful Diana Ashington, and Colonel Nur Arslan, the incorruptible yet human police chief from Ankara. Yet Colonel Nur is himself faced with a terrible dilemma for every lead he follows in his effort to break a new opium ring takes him inexorably towards the Paradise Tea-House and his own father's guilt. Readers of DIAMONDS BID and HAND OUT will welcome eagerly the return of Colonel Nur in a case which calls for all his skill and tenacity. In TRIP TRAP will be found the pace, humour, the solid characterization and the exotic Turkish backgrounds which made Rathbone's first three books so exciting to read.

 

 

 

 

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Julian Christopher Rathbone (10 February 1935 - 28 February 2008) was an English novelist. Julian Rathbone attended Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary of Bamber Gascoigne and Sylvia Plath. At Cambridge he took tutorials with FR Leavis, for whom, without having ever been what might be described as a 'Leavisite', he retained an abiding respect. After university Rathbone lived in Turkey for three years, making a living by teaching English. While in Turkey he heard that his father had been killed in a road accident at the age of sixty, an event to which Rathbone would return when himself the same age, in Blame Hitler. On his return to England jobs in various London schools were followed by the post of Head of English at the comprehensive school in Bognor Regis, West Sussex. Having originally aspired to be an actor or a painter, Rathbone had also taken up writing and by the end of the 1960s had had three novels published, all set in Turkey and informed by a background of which he had intimate knowledge. In 1973 Rathbone finally gave up teaching and left for Spain with the woman who would become his wife and lifelong companion, determined from then on to make his living by writing. Back in England and after some financially lean years Rathbone found his tenacity beginning to pay off. Booker Prize short-listings in 1976 and 1979 brought critical recognition, and although major commercial success remained elusive Rathbone's work appeared regularly, gaining a loyal readership and increasing popularity both at home and abroad. His novels continued to display interests and talents across several genres, from mainstream through thrillers to historical fiction. His novel of 1066, The Last English King, published 1997, achieved considerable commercial success and has been optioned for film several times without having yet made it to the screen. As a writer of non-fiction Rathbone made a lasting and original contribution to Wellington and Peninsular War studies with his Wellington's War, 1984. Various threads run through Rathbone's novels over their forty-year span. Standing firmly in the 19th Century tradition with its belief in the primacy of the writer's imagination and its consequent freedom to explore human life in all its aspects, Rathbone always refused to be tied to a single genre, time or place or character in undertaking this exploration. An ostensible thriller may be just as much a study of relationships, an apparently mainstream novel an investigation of crime, a work of historical fiction a meditation on contemporary issues. In blurring and blending genres in this way, for three decades or more in which the book market became increasingly obsessed with the typecasting and branding of books and their authors, Rathbone can be seen as having explored and questioned the nature of genre itself, its scope and limitations. Wherever the definitions of a particular genre threatened to restrict his enquiry into the human condition, Rathbone never hesitated to push it into wider territory. In a climate of increasing specialisation expected of novelists by the marketplace, this was an unfashionable approach to take, with arguably a heavy commercial cost over the years as Rathbone went his own way and refused to seek or accept any label or badge of identification which might increase sales but confine his activities as a writer. Rathbone in fact created four characters who appear in more than one of his books, permitting a certain grouping around each of them while never taking over the heterogeneous spirit of his work or deflecting him from the pursuit of wider fictional interests. First was Inspector Jan Argand (The Euro-Killers, Base Case, Watching The Detectives). Then the ‘Joseph' of Joseph (Booker nomination 1979) makes his reappearance as Charlie Boylan in A Very English Agent and later as Eddie Bosham in Birth Of A Nation, as Rathbone follows the thread of events from the war in the Peninsula through the world of German exiles taking refuge in early Victorian London and on to the early years of the modern USA. Two books for Serpent's Tail - Accidents Will Happen and Brandenburg Concerto - focused on Renate Fechter, head of a German squad of Eco-police. Then finally Rathbone created a British private investigator, Chris Shovelin, for the two recent books Homage and As Bad As It Gets for Allison and Busby. Although diverse and strong characters in themselves, none of these four ever seemed likely to take over the oeuvre as a whole. Rathbone remained committed to diversity of inspiration rather than the formulaic approach to which concentration on a single character can lead. Leavis, although Rathbone never shared his cultural aridity, was a long-term presence in the novelist's background as a man who insisted on the power and importance of imaginative literature. In A Last Resort, written around the time of Leavis's death and giving a brilliant portrayal of a Britain making itself ripe for Thatcherism, the ferocious Cambridge don makes a brief appearance in the intellectual life of a gifted English student at a school not unlike the one Rathbone had taught in until a few years previously. As a writer perhaps the nearest Rathbone came to an acknowledged antecedent was Graham Greene, whose weaving of the thriller and mainstream strands of fiction, together with in-depth exploration of wider spiritual and political issues often set in foreign locations, clearly struck many chords both with Rathbone's vocational subject-matter and belief in the novelist's ability to address himself to all aspects of human life on as broad a front as he likes, with the finished work of fiction as the only credential he needs. Greene remained an icon with Rathbone throughout his writing life, as did the different figure of James Joyce, object of Rathbone's greatest reverence although rarely exercising any overt influence in his writing. A Last Resort is probably the most Joycean of Rathbone's books, in its use of accumulation of mundane detail to build up an almost surreal portrait of a country whose identity is dissolving in front of its face. To Joyce himself Rathbone paid the ultimate compliment of constantly rereading without seeking to imitate. Rathbone was a man of what might be called the classic Left. After public school and Cambridge three years in Turkey told him all he needed to know about poverty, and the next decade and a half of teaching in British secondary schools made him expert in the class system of his own country. His politics were those of tolerance and libertarianism, with an innate distrust of self-serving hierarchies and a cynicism towards power-structures and their manipulation of the world, in particular the world of the helpless. In his fiction, much influenced by Greene, he always made social and historical context part of the weave of the narrative. Twenty years ago, in Zdt and The Pandora Option, he dealt with food as a new weapon in the armoury of the superpowers, and in the early 1990s (Sand Blind) with the capacity of those same superpowers to fabricate wars in the interests of their own technologies and consumer needs. In Trajectories (1998) he presents a nightmare vision of Britain in 2035 which seems more recognisable and likely with every year that passes. Over a writing career of forty years, during which the world might be said to have changed out of recognition, it is notable how few of Rathbone's preoccupations and perceptions have dated, while many have been prescient and remain as relevant as they ever were. In his latest book The Mutiny, dealing with the Indian rising against British rule in 1857, the same commitment to clarity of vision is evident, an equal openness to all experiences and forces involved in the events of the time, which continues to mark Rathbone down as unashamedly in the line of the great novelists of the 19th Century. The critic who took Rathbone to task for appearing to claim a superiority of approach to the professional historian in dealing with such contentious historical material was raising a question which Rathbone's whole career, and The Mutiny itself, was dedicated to answering. For a man of wide intellectual interests Rathbone produced relatively little outside his long list of novels. Much travelled, and loving foreign places, he always aspired to produce volumes of travel writing, but nothing in this direction ever came to fruition commercially. His one non-fictional publication was Wellington's War (1984), product of a fascination with Wellington which dated back to schooldays. Following within fifteen years of Elizabeth Longford's two-volume biography, which re-established Wellington as a subject for serious study, Rathbone's book is a radical and original departure from the normal run of biographical accounts. Based on detailed research into both Wellington's collected correspondence and the battlefields of the Peninsular War, it counterpoints extracts from the letters with Rathbone's own elucidations and comments. As well as uniquely conveying the immediacy of events through Wellington's thought-processes and human voice, Wellington's War does more than any other book on the subject to illustrate the dimension and brilliance of Wellington's genius. The Duke himself has a habit of cropping up in various of Rathbone's fictions, notably in Joseph and A Very English Agent and, more hauntingly, in Blame Hitler, the novel in which Rathbone writes about his own father. Rathbone described his own interest in Wellington as ‘probably Oedipal‘, and the Duke as ‘the ultimate father-figure'. Wellington's War remains unique not only in Rathbone's own work but also in the growing contemporary literature on Wellington.

 

 

 

See if zenosbooks.com has any books for sale by this author

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

---

Details

Category: Favorites

Hits: 1405

Accidents Will Happen by Julian Rathbone. London. 1995. Serpent's Tail. 1852423129.  288 pages. paperback. Cover illustration by Oscar Zarate.

 

 

DESCRIPTION - Renata Fechter is a strong woman in a man's world. She heads up the Eco-Cops, a post she's been given to keep her quiet and out of the way. But when the Burghaven case turns out to be a lot nastier than anyone ever imagined, she swings into action. Faced with corrupt politicians, crooked businessmen and toxic waste scandal, it takes Renata all her wits to stay one step ahead of her shadowy adversaries in a dangerous game.

 

 

 

 

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Julian Christopher Rathbone (10 February 1935 - 28 February 2008) was an English novelist. Julian Rathbone attended Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary of Bamber Gascoigne and Sylvia Plath. At Cambridge he took tutorials with FR Leavis, for whom, without having ever been what might be described as a 'Leavisite', he retained an abiding respect. After university Rathbone lived in Turkey for three years, making a living by teaching English. While in Turkey he heard that his father had been killed in a road accident at the age of sixty, an event to which Rathbone would return when himself the same age, in Blame Hitler. On his return to England jobs in various London schools were followed by the post of Head of English at the comprehensive school in Bognor Regis, West Sussex. Having originally aspired to be an actor or a painter, Rathbone had also taken up writing and by the end of the 1960s had had three novels published, all set in Turkey and informed by a background of which he had intimate knowledge. In 1973 Rathbone finally gave up teaching and left for Spain with the woman who would become his wife and lifelong companion, determined from then on to make his living by writing. Back in England and after some financially lean years Rathbone found his tenacity beginning to pay off. Booker Prize short-listings in 1976 and 1979 brought critical recognition, and although major commercial success remained elusive Rathbone's work appeared regularly, gaining a loyal readership and increasing popularity both at home and abroad. His novels continued to display interests and talents across several genres, from mainstream through thrillers to historical fiction. His novel of 1066, The Last English King, published 1997, achieved considerable commercial success and has been optioned for film several times without having yet made it to the screen. As a writer of non-fiction Rathbone made a lasting and original contribution to Wellington and Peninsular War studies with his Wellington's War, 1984. Various threads run through Rathbone's novels over their forty-year span. Standing firmly in the 19th Century tradition with its belief in the primacy of the writer's imagination and its consequent freedom to explore human life in all its aspects, Rathbone always refused to be tied to a single genre, time or place or character in undertaking this exploration. An ostensible thriller may be just as much a study of relationships, an apparently mainstream novel an investigation of crime, a work of historical fiction a meditation on contemporary issues. In blurring and blending genres in this way, for three decades or more in which the book market became increasingly obsessed with the typecasting and branding of books and their authors, Rathbone can be seen as having explored and questioned the nature of genre itself, its scope and limitations. Wherever the definitions of a particular genre threatened to restrict his enquiry into the human condition, Rathbone never hesitated to push it into wider territory. In a climate of increasing specialisation expected of novelists by the marketplace, this was an unfashionable approach to take, with arguably a heavy commercial cost over the years as Rathbone went his own way and refused to seek or accept any label or badge of identification which might increase sales but confine his activities as a writer. Rathbone in fact created four characters who appear in more than one of his books, permitting a certain grouping around each of them while never taking over the heterogeneous spirit of his work or deflecting him from the pursuit of wider fictional interests. First was Inspector Jan Argand (The Euro-Killers, Base Case, Watching The Detectives). Then the ‘Joseph' of Joseph (Booker nomination 1979) makes his reappearance as Charlie Boylan in A Very English Agent and later as Eddie Bosham in Birth Of A Nation, as Rathbone follows the thread of events from the war in the Peninsula through the world of German exiles taking refuge in early Victorian London and on to the early years of the modern USA. Two books for Serpent's Tail - Accidents Will Happen and Brandenburg Concerto - focused on Renate Fechter, head of a German squad of Eco-police. Then finally Rathbone created a British private investigator, Chris Shovelin, for the two recent books Homage and As Bad As It Gets for Allison and Busby. Although diverse and strong characters in themselves, none of these four ever seemed likely to take over the oeuvre as a whole. Rathbone remained committed to diversity of inspiration rather than the formulaic approach to which concentration on a single character can lead. Leavis, although Rathbone never shared his cultural aridity, was a long-term presence in the novelist's background as a man who insisted on the power and importance of imaginative literature. In A Last Resort, written around the time of Leavis's death and giving a brilliant portrayal of a Britain making itself ripe for Thatcherism, the ferocious Cambridge don makes a brief appearance in the intellectual life of a gifted English student at a school not unlike the one Rathbone had taught in until a few years previously. As a writer perhaps the nearest Rathbone came to an acknowledged antecedent was Graham Greene, whose weaving of the thriller and mainstream strands of fiction, together with in-depth exploration of wider spiritual and political issues often set in foreign locations, clearly struck many chords both with Rathbone's vocational subject-matter and belief in the novelist's ability to address himself to all aspects of human life on as broad a front as he likes, with the finished work of fiction as the only credential he needs. Greene remained an icon with Rathbone throughout his writing life, as did the different figure of James Joyce, object of Rathbone's greatest reverence although rarely exercising any overt influence in his writing. A Last Resort is probably the most Joycean of Rathbone's books, in its use of accumulation of mundane detail to build up an almost surreal portrait of a country whose identity is dissolving in front of its face. To Joyce himself Rathbone paid the ultimate compliment of constantly rereading without seeking to imitate. Rathbone was a man of what might be called the classic Left. After public school and Cambridge three years in Turkey told him all he needed to know about poverty, and the next decade and a half of teaching in British secondary schools made him expert in the class system of his own country. His politics were those of tolerance and libertarianism, with an innate distrust of self-serving hierarchies and a cynicism towards power-structures and their manipulation of the world, in particular the world of the helpless. In his fiction, much influenced by Greene, he always made social and historical context part of the weave of the narrative. Twenty years ago, in Zdt and The Pandora Option, he dealt with food as a new weapon in the armoury of the superpowers, and in the early 1990s (Sand Blind) with the capacity of those same superpowers to fabricate wars in the interests of their own technologies and consumer needs. In Trajectories (1998) he presents a nightmare vision of Britain in 2035 which seems more recognisable and likely with every year that passes. Over a writing career of forty years, during which the world might be said to have changed out of recognition, it is notable how few of Rathbone's preoccupations and perceptions have dated, while many have been prescient and remain as relevant as they ever were. In his latest book The Mutiny, dealing with the Indian rising against British rule in 1857, the same commitment to clarity of vision is evident, an equal openness to all experiences and forces involved in the events of the time, which continues to mark Rathbone down as unashamedly in the line of the great novelists of the 19th Century. The critic who took Rathbone to task for appearing to claim a superiority of approach to the professional historian in dealing with such contentious historical material was raising a question which Rathbone's whole career, and The Mutiny itself, was dedicated to answering. For a man of wide intellectual interests Rathbone produced relatively little outside his long list of novels. Much travelled, and loving foreign places, he always aspired to produce volumes of travel writing, but nothing in this direction ever came to fruition commercially. His one non-fictional publication was Wellington's War (1984), product of a fascination with Wellington which dated back to schooldays. Following within fifteen years of Elizabeth Longford's two-volume biography, which re-established Wellington as a subject for serious study, Rathbone's book is a radical and original departure from the normal run of biographical accounts. Based on detailed research into both Wellington's collected correspondence and the battlefields of the Peninsular War, it counterpoints extracts from the letters with Rathbone's own elucidations and comments. As well as uniquely conveying the immediacy of events through Wellington's thought-processes and human voice, Wellington's War does more than any other book on the subject to illustrate the dimension and brilliance of Wellington's genius. The Duke himself has a habit of cropping up in various of Rathbone's fictions, notably in Joseph and A Very English Agent and, more hauntingly, in Blame Hitler, the novel in which Rathbone writes about his own father. Rathbone described his own interest in Wellington as ‘probably Oedipal‘, and the Duke as ‘the ultimate father-figure'. Wellington's War remains unique not only in Rathbone's own work but also in the growing contemporary literature on Wellington.

 

 

 

See if zenosbooks.com has any books for sale by this author

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

---

Details

Category: Favorites

Hits: 2120

The Last English King by Julian Rathbone. New York. 1999. St Martin's Press. 0312242131. 400 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration: Harold I (c. 1035-40). Crowned King of England (Bayeux Tapestry).  

 

 

DESCRIPTION - On the Sussex Downs in 1066, the psychotic William and his gang of European mercenaries began the process which fragmented a civilisation. Walt, the last of King Harold's bodyguard, the one who survived Hastings, wanders across Asia Minor in the company of Quint, an intellectual renegade monk. On the way he unfolds the events that led up to the battle which affected the destinies of every English man and woman. With rare skill, Rathbone vividly recreates a civilisation that stubbornly remains alive in the collective memory to this day, and so identifies the roots of the still-held belief that every English person is born free and should stay free. Tender romance, savage war, courtly intrigue and some wry humour combine to make THE LAST ENGLISH KING an exhilarating roller-coaster ride into our past.

 

 

 

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Julian Christopher Rathbone (10 February 1935 - 28 February 2008) was an English novelist. Julian Rathbone attended Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary of Bamber Gascoigne and Sylvia Plath. At Cambridge he took tutorials with FR Leavis, for whom, without having ever been what might be described as a 'Leavisite', he retained an abiding respect. After university Rathbone lived in Turkey for three years, making a living by teaching English. While in Turkey he heard that his father had been killed in a road accident at the age of sixty, an event to which Rathbone would return when himself the same age, in Blame Hitler. On his return to England jobs in various London schools were followed by the post of Head of English at the comprehensive school in Bognor Regis, West Sussex. Having originally aspired to be an actor or a painter, Rathbone had also taken up writing and by the end of the 1960s had had three novels published, all set in Turkey and informed by a background of which he had intimate knowledge. In 1973 Rathbone finally gave up teaching and left for Spain with the woman who would become his wife and lifelong companion, determined from then on to make his living by writing. Back in England and after some financially lean years Rathbone found his tenacity beginning to pay off. Booker Prize short-listings in 1976 and 1979 brought critical recognition, and although major commercial success remained elusive Rathbone's work appeared regularly, gaining a loyal readership and increasing popularity both at home and abroad. His novels continued to display interests and talents across several genres, from mainstream through thrillers to historical fiction. His novel of 1066, The Last English King, published 1997, achieved considerable commercial success and has been optioned for film several times without having yet made it to the screen. As a writer of non-fiction Rathbone made a lasting and original contribution to Wellington and Peninsular War studies with his Wellington's War, 1984. Various threads run through Rathbone's novels over their forty-year span. Standing firmly in the 19th Century tradition with its belief in the primacy of the writer's imagination and its consequent freedom to explore human life in all its aspects, Rathbone always refused to be tied to a single genre, time or place or character in undertaking this exploration. An ostensible thriller may be just as much a study of relationships, an apparently mainstream novel an investigation of crime, a work of historical fiction a meditation on contemporary issues. In blurring and blending genres in this way, for three decades or more in which the book market became increasingly obsessed with the typecasting and branding of books and their authors, Rathbone can be seen as having explored and questioned the nature of genre itself, its scope and limitations. Wherever the definitions of a particular genre threatened to restrict his enquiry into the human condition, Rathbone never hesitated to push it into wider territory. In a climate of increasing specialisation expected of novelists by the marketplace, this was an unfashionable approach to take, with arguably a heavy commercial cost over the years as Rathbone went his own way and refused to seek or accept any label or badge of identification which might increase sales but confine his activities as a writer. Rathbone in fact created four characters who appear in more than one of his books, permitting a certain grouping around each of them while never taking over the heterogeneous spirit of his work or deflecting him from the pursuit of wider fictional interests. First was Inspector Jan Argand (The Euro-Killers, Base Case, Watching The Detectives). Then the ‘Joseph' of Joseph (Booker nomination 1979) makes his reappearance as Charlie Boylan in A Very English Agent and later as Eddie Bosham in Birth Of A Nation, as Rathbone follows the thread of events from the war in the Peninsula through the world of German exiles taking refuge in early Victorian London and on to the early years of the modern USA. Two books for Serpent's Tail - Accidents Will Happen and Brandenburg Concerto - focused on Renate Fechter, head of a German squad of Eco-police. Then finally Rathbone created a British private investigator, Chris Shovelin, for the two recent books Homage and As Bad As It Gets for Allison and Busby. Although diverse and strong characters in themselves, none of these four ever seemed likely to take over the oeuvre as a whole. Rathbone remained committed to diversity of inspiration rather than the formulaic approach to which concentration on a single character can lead. Leavis, although Rathbone never shared his cultural aridity, was a long-term presence in the novelist's background as a man who insisted on the power and importance of imaginative literature. In A Last Resort, written around the time of Leavis's death and giving a brilliant portrayal of a Britain making itself ripe for Thatcherism, the ferocious Cambridge don makes a brief appearance in the intellectual life of a gifted English student at a school not unlike the one Rathbone had taught in until a few years previously. As a writer perhaps the nearest Rathbone came to an acknowledged antecedent was Graham Greene, whose weaving of the thriller and mainstream strands of fiction, together with in-depth exploration of wider spiritual and political issues often set in foreign locations, clearly struck many chords both with Rathbone's vocational subject-matter and belief in the novelist's ability to address himself to all aspects of human life on as broad a front as he likes, with the finished work of fiction as the only credential he needs. Greene remained an icon with Rathbone throughout his writing life, as did the different figure of James Joyce, object of Rathbone's greatest reverence although rarely exercising any overt influence in his writing. A Last Resort is probably the most Joycean of Rathbone's books, in its use of accumulation of mundane detail to build up an almost surreal portrait of a country whose identity is dissolving in front of its face. To Joyce himself Rathbone paid the ultimate compliment of constantly rereading without seeking to imitate. Rathbone was a man of what might be called the classic Left. After public school and Cambridge three years in Turkey told him all he needed to know about poverty, and the next decade and a half of teaching in British secondary schools made him expert in the class system of his own country. His politics were those of tolerance and libertarianism, with an innate distrust of self-serving hierarchies and a cynicism towards power-structures and their manipulation of the world, in particular the world of the helpless. In his fiction, much influenced by Greene, he always made social and historical context part of the weave of the narrative. Twenty years ago, in Zdt and The Pandora Option, he dealt with food as a new weapon in the armoury of the superpowers, and in the early 1990s (Sand Blind) with the capacity of those same superpowers to fabricate wars in the interests of their own technologies and consumer needs. In Trajectories (1998) he presents a nightmare vision of Britain in 2035 which seems more recognisable and likely with every year that passes. Over a writing career of forty years, during which the world might be said to have changed out of recognition, it is notable how few of Rathbone's preoccupations and perceptions have dated, while many have been prescient and remain as relevant as they ever were. In his latest book The Mutiny, dealing with the Indian rising against British rule in 1857, the same commitment to clarity of vision is evident, an equal openness to all experiences and forces involved in the events of the time, which continues to mark Rathbone down as unashamedly in the line of the great novelists of the 19th Century. The critic who took Rathbone to task for appearing to claim a superiority of approach to the professional historian in dealing with such contentious historical material was raising a question which Rathbone's whole career, and The Mutiny itself, was dedicated to answering. For a man of wide intellectual interests Rathbone produced relatively little outside his long list of novels. Much travelled, and loving foreign places, he always aspired to produce volumes of travel writing, but nothing in this direction ever came to fruition commercially. His one non-fictional publication was Wellington's War (1984), product of a fascination with Wellington which dated back to schooldays. Following within fifteen years of Elizabeth Longford's two-volume biography, which re-established Wellington as a subject for serious study, Rathbone's book is a radical and original departure from the normal run of biographical accounts. Based on detailed research into both Wellington's collected correspondence and the battlefields of the Peninsular War, it counterpoints extracts from the letters with Rathbone's own elucidations and comments. As well as uniquely conveying the immediacy of events through Wellington's thought-processes and human voice, Wellington's War does more than any other book on the subject to illustrate the dimension and brilliance of Wellington's genius. The Duke himself has a habit of cropping up in various of Rathbone's fictions, notably in Joseph and A Very English Agent and, more hauntingly, in Blame Hitler, the novel in which Rathbone writes about his own father. Rathbone described his own interest in Wellington as ‘probably Oedipal‘, and the Duke as ‘the ultimate father-figure'. Wellington's War remains unique not only in Rathbone's own work but also in the growing contemporary literature on Wellington.

 

 

 

See if zenosbooks.com has any books for sale by this author

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

Details

Category: Favorites

Hits: 149

With My Knives I Know I'm Good by Julian Rathbone. New York. 1970. Putnam. 217 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Jay J. Smith.  

 

 

DESCRIPTION - This dazzlingly, original suspense-adventure stars a new kind of hero. His name is Aziz Milyutin; he is an Azeri Turk from the Caspian Sea, and he is by profession a knife thrower. Currently touring with a carnival through the Middle East, his great dream is to save enough money to one day own his own piece of land in his native Turkey - to regain the dignity of his farming forefathers. When he is offered a lucrative job in a nightclub in Beirut, his suspicions are not at first aroused, but then too many people become interested in him, watchful and questioning. And when among the ruins of Baalbek he witnesses a murder, he discovers that he has been dropped into a world of intrigue, seduction and sudden death. Bewildered, on alien soil, unable to identify his enemies - or even to understand why he is a target - Aziz finds himself completely alone. But on his side he has a strange assortment of weapons: the luck of the innocent; an unshakable, inbred desire for revenge; his own strong character, earthy, but honorable, simple, yet cunning - and four gleaming silver knives.

 

 

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Julian Christopher Rathbone (10 February 1935 - 28 February 2008) was an English novelist. Julian Rathbone attended Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary of Bamber Gascoigne and Sylvia Plath. At Cambridge he took tutorials with FR Leavis, for whom, without having ever been what might be described as a 'Leavisite', he retained an abiding respect. After university Rathbone lived in Turkey for three years, making a living by teaching English. While in Turkey he heard that his father had been killed in a road accident at the age of sixty, an event to which Rathbone would return when himself the same age, in Blame Hitler. On his return to England jobs in various London schools were followed by the post of Head of English at the comprehensive school in Bognor Regis, West Sussex. Having originally aspired to be an actor or a painter, Rathbone had also taken up writing and by the end of the 1960s had had three novels published, all set in Turkey and informed by a background of which he had intimate knowledge. In 1973 Rathbone finally gave up teaching and left for Spain with the woman who would become his wife and lifelong companion, determined from then on to make his living by writing. Back in England and after some financially lean years Rathbone found his tenacity beginning to pay off. Booker Prize short-listings in 1976 and 1979 brought critical recognition, and although major commercial success remained elusive Rathbone's work appeared regularly, gaining a loyal readership and increasing popularity both at home and abroad. His novels continued to display interests and talents across several genres, from mainstream through thrillers to historical fiction. His novel of 1066, The Last English King, published 1997, achieved considerable commercial success and has been optioned for film several times without having yet made it to the screen. As a writer of non-fiction Rathbone made a lasting and original contribution to Wellington and Peninsular War studies with his Wellington's War, 1984. Various threads run through Rathbone's novels over their forty-year span. Standing firmly in the 19th Century tradition with its belief in the primacy of the writer's imagination and its consequent freedom to explore human life in all its aspects, Rathbone always refused to be tied to a single genre, time or place or character in undertaking this exploration. An ostensible thriller may be just as much a study of relationships, an apparently mainstream novel an investigation of crime, a work of historical fiction a meditation on contemporary issues. In blurring and blending genres in this way, for three decades or more in which the book market became increasingly obsessed with the typecasting and branding of books and their authors, Rathbone can be seen as having explored and questioned the nature of genre itself, its scope and limitations. Wherever the definitions of a particular genre threatened to restrict his enquiry into the human condition, Rathbone never hesitated to push it into wider territory. In a climate of increasing specialisation expected of novelists by the marketplace, this was an unfashionable approach to take, with arguably a heavy commercial cost over the years as Rathbone went his own way and refused to seek or accept any label or badge of identification which might increase sales but confine his activities as a writer. Rathbone in fact created four characters who appear in more than one of his books, permitting a certain grouping around each of them while never taking over the heterogeneous spirit of his work or deflecting him from the pursuit of wider fictional interests. First was Inspector Jan Argand (The Euro-Killers, Base Case, Watching The Detectives). Then the ‘Joseph' of Joseph (Booker nomination 1979) makes his reappearance as Charlie Boylan in A Very English Agent and later as Eddie Bosham in Birth Of A Nation, as Rathbone follows the thread of events from the war in the Peninsula through the world of German exiles taking refuge in early Victorian London and on to the early years of the modern USA. Two books for Serpent's Tail - Accidents Will Happen and Brandenburg Concerto - focused on Renate Fechter, head of a German squad of Eco-police. Then finally Rathbone created a British private investigator, Chris Shovelin, for the two recent books Homage and As Bad As It Gets for Allison and Busby. Although diverse and strong characters in themselves, none of these four ever seemed likely to take over the oeuvre as a whole. Rathbone remained committed to diversity of inspiration rather than the formulaic approach to which concentration on a single character can lead. Leavis, although Rathbone never shared his cultural aridity, was a long-term presence in the novelist's background as a man who insisted on the power and importance of imaginative literature. In A Last Resort, written around the time of Leavis's death and giving a brilliant portrayal of a Britain making itself ripe for Thatcherism, the ferocious Cambridge don makes a brief appearance in the intellectual life of a gifted English student at a school not unlike the one Rathbone had taught in until a few years previously. As a writer perhaps the nearest Rathbone came to an acknowledged antecedent was Graham Greene, whose weaving of the thriller and mainstream strands of fiction, together with in-depth exploration of wider spiritual and political issues often set in foreign locations, clearly struck many chords both with Rathbone's vocational subject-matter and belief in the novelist's ability to address himself to all aspects of human life on as broad a front as he likes, with the finished work of fiction as the only credential he needs. Greene remained an icon with Rathbone throughout his writing life, as did the different figure of James Joyce, object of Rathbone's greatest reverence although rarely exercising any overt influence in his writing. A Last Resort is probably the most Joycean of Rathbone's books, in its use of accumulation of mundane detail to build up an almost surreal portrait of a country whose identity is dissolving in front of its face. To Joyce himself Rathbone paid the ultimate compliment of constantly rereading without seeking to imitate. Rathbone was a man of what might be called the classic Left. After public school and Cambridge three years in Turkey told him all he needed to know about poverty, and the next decade and a half of teaching in British secondary schools made him expert in the class system of his own country. His politics were those of tolerance and libertarianism, with an innate distrust of self-serving hierarchies and a cynicism towards power-structures and their manipulation of the world, in particular the world of the helpless. In his fiction, much influenced by Greene, he always made social and historical context part of the weave of the narrative. Twenty years ago, in Zdt and The Pandora Option, he dealt with food as a new weapon in the armoury of the superpowers, and in the early 1990s (Sand Blind) with the capacity of those same superpowers to fabricate wars in the interests of their own technologies and consumer needs. In Trajectories (1998) he presents a nightmare vision of Britain in 2035 which seems more recognisable and likely with every year that passes. Over a writing career of forty years, during which the world might be said to have changed out of recognition, it is notable how few of Rathbone's preoccupations and perceptions have dated, while many have been prescient and remain as relevant as they ever were. In his latest book The Mutiny, dealing with the Indian rising against British rule in 1857, the same commitment to clarity of vision is evident, an equal openness to all experiences and forces involved in the events of the time, which continues to mark Rathbone down as unashamedly in the line of the great novelists of the 19th Century. The critic who took Rathbone to task for appearing to claim a superiority of approach to the professional historian in dealing with such contentious historical material was raising a question which Rathbone's whole career, and The Mutiny itself, was dedicated to answering. For a man of wide intellectual interests Rathbone produced relatively little outside his long list of novels. Much travelled, and loving foreign places, he always aspired to produce volumes of travel writing, but nothing in this direction ever came to fruition commercially. His one non-fictional publication was Wellington's War (1984), product of a fascination with Wellington which dated back to schooldays. Following within fifteen years of Elizabeth Longford's two-volume biography, which re-established Wellington as a subject for serious study, Rathbone's book is a radical and original departure from the normal run of biographical accounts. Based on detailed research into both Wellington's collected correspondence and the battlefields of the Peninsular War, it counterpoints extracts from the letters with Rathbone's own elucidations and comments. As well as uniquely conveying the immediacy of events through Wellington's thought-processes and human voice, Wellington's War does more than any other book on the subject to illustrate the dimension and brilliance of Wellington's genius. The Duke himself has a habit of cropping up in various of Rathbone's fictions, notably in Joseph and A Very English Agent and, more hauntingly, in Blame Hitler, the novel in which Rathbone writes about his own father. Rathbone described his own interest in Wellington as ‘probably Oedipal‘, and the Duke as ‘the ultimate father-figure'. Wellington's War remains unique not only in Rathbone's own work but also in the growing contemporary literature on Wellington.

 

 

See if zenosbooks.com has any books for sale by this author

 

 

 

 

---

 

 

 

Details

Category: Favorites

Hits: 3621

Himes, Chester. Yesterday Will Make You Cry: A Novel. New York. 1998. Norton. 0393045773. Introduction by Melvin Van Peebles. 363 pages. hardcover.

 

 

DESCRIPTION - In 1937 Chester Himes, newly released from a seven-year stretch in the Ohio State Penitentiary for grand larceny, began his first novel, YESTERDAY WILL MAKE YOU CRY. By turns brutal and lyrical and never less than totally honest, it tells the autobiographical story of young Jimmy Monroe’s passage through the prison system, which tests the limits of his sanity, his capacity for suffering, and his definition of love. Stunningly candid about racism, homosexuality, and prison corruption, the book would take sixteen years and four subsequent revisions before being published in a much-altered form as CAST THE FIRST STONE in 1953. Even bowdlerized, it was recognized as a sardonic masterpiece of debasement and transfiguration. This edition, the first hardcover publication in Norton’s Old School Books series, presents for the first time the book precisely as Himes intended it to be read, with its raw honesty and startling compassion entirely intact.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The original extensively edited edition from 1952:

 

 

Himes, Chester. Cast the First Stone. New York. 1952. Coward-McCann. 346 pages. hardcover.

DESCRIPTION - Jim looks between the cold-gray bars of his cell seeing the red sun flashing through the naked branches of a distant tree. It is all that he can see of the outside from the small cell he shares with three others who, like himself, are going to spend many years in a single room. A prisoner knows upon his first arrival in prison that he is losing time. Time is the one thing that can never be replaced; the element that can never be compensated for by any little victories lurking in the imagination. He knows, or thinks that he knows, that his prison is a place where normal men of normal appetites and desires are shut off from their natural yearnings as a punishment for attacks on a cruel, uninterested society. He thinks that he will be a normal man shut off from intercourse with normal human beings. It is here that he is wrong. For it will be only after time - something quite different in prison than out - has passed that he slowly awakens to the fact that he is not simply a man locked up. Prison is not only keeping him from contact with his fellow humans; it is making him into something else. A man - if a prisoner can be called a man - who thinks, feels, and loves differently from other men. Jim Munroe is the prisoner in CAST THE FIRST STONE. In prison for twenty years, he tells his own story in this powerful novel - a novel that is big, brutal, and vicious, startlingly revealing, and, best of all perhaps, enormously compassionate. Jim Munroe shows you how a prisoner faces years, years to think, to live, to suffer, to yearn, to strive for what he considers good. Mostly good is outside of the walls, for inside are only the dreams that germinate in the dark corners of his mind - dreams that come to a fulfillment that is even worse than frustration. In 1937 Chester Himes, newly released from a seven-year stretch in the Ohio State Penitentiary for grand larceny, began his first novel, CAST THE FIRST STONE. By turns brutal and lyrical and never less than totally honest, it tells the autobiographical story of young Jimmy Monroe’s passage through the prison system, which tests the limits of his sanity, his capacity for suffering, and his definition of love. Stunningly candid about racism, homosexuality, and prison corruption, the book would take sixteen years and four subsequent revisions before being published in a much-altered form in 1953. Even bowdlerized, it was recognized as a sardonic masterpiece of debasement and transfiguration. This book was later published as YESTERDAY WILL MAKE YOU CRY by Norton in their Old School Books series, presented for the first time the book precisely as Himes intended it to be read, with its raw honesty and startling compassion entirely intact.

 

 

The Signet paperback edition:

 

Cast The First Stone by Chester Himes. New York. 1972. Signet/New American Library. 303 pages. January 1972. Y4882. paperback. 

DESCRIPTION - A GREAT NOVEL THAT RIPS ASIDE THE BARRED DOORS OF PRISON LIFE. James Monroe was young and educated. He stood before the judge and tried to look humble and heard himself sentenced to twenty years in prison. Here is Chester Himes’s great novel of prison life. It is a story both of brutal debasement and of the slow growth of maturity and compassion. It is a vivid re-creation of a perverse society with its own rules, its own taboos, its own virtues and grotesque vices. And strangely enough, it is also a love story - a love between two men. ‘Accurate and intense. . . as good as IF HE HOLLERS LET HIM GO.’ - Saturday Review. ‘A nightmarish picture, illuminated by flashes of sardonic humor. . . . I’ve never read anything like it.’ - Saturday Review.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

See if zenosbooks.com has any books for sale by this author

 

 

---

 

 

 

Details

Category: Favorites

Hits: 572

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.

 

 

 

See if zenosbooks.com has any books for sale by this author

 

 

---

 

 

 

Details

Category: Favorites

Hits: 527

The Knight and Death & One Way or Another by Leonardo Sciascia. London. 1991. Granta Books. 1862075794. Translated from the Italian by Avril Bardoni. 155 pages. paperback. Design: random. Photograph: Getty/Stone. 

 

 

DESCRIPTION - The Knight and Death two men — Sandoz, a prominent lawyer, and Aurispa, president of a large exchange mysterious handwritten corporation notes at a dinner party (a joke, or something more sinister?). Hours later Sandoz is murdered and the shadow of suspicion moves from Aurispa to a telephone call from the self-styled 'Children of Eighty-nine'. But are they really a terrorist threat, or a political red-herring created for the Italian media? One Way or Another is a chillingly prophetic work that ranks among the best of Sciascia. Among the oak and chestnut trees of an undefined and beautiful place, the narrator, a painter, chances upon an asphalt square with a cement palace built around it. A hotel? A hermitage? Or both? He recognizes the men entering the building as the industrial, religious, political and military chiefs of Italy. The rendezvous turns out to be an occasion for secret deals and fixes, as well as spiritual recreation. Everything appears to go according to plan until suddenly one guest is murdered, then another. ‘Leonardo Sciascia is in the very first rank of Italian writers ... his books are both lucid and mysterious; they address complex public subjects with clarity and elegance; they move with the pace of thrillers and have the resonance of poetry' Philip Hensher, Spectator.

 

Leonardo Sciascia (January 8, 1921 – November 20, 1989) was an Italian writer, novelist, essayist, playwright and politician. Some of his works have been made into films, including Open Doors (1990) and Il giorno della civetta (1968). Sciascia was born in Racalmuto, Sicily. In 1935 his family moved to Caltanissetta; here Sciascia studied under Vitaliano Brancati, who would become his model in writing and introduce him to French novelists. From Giuseppe Granata, future Communist member of the Italian Senate, he learned about the French Enlightenment and American literature. In 1944 he married Maria Andronico, an elementary school teacher in Racalmuto. In 1948 his brother committed suicide, an event which had a profound impact on Sciascia. Sciascia's first work, Favole della dittatura (“Fables of the Dictatorship”), a satire on fascism, was published in 1950 and included 27 short poems. This was followed in 1952 by La Sicilia, il suo cuore, also a poetry collection, illustrated by Emilio Greco. The following year Sciascia won the Premio Pirandello, awarded by the Sicily region, for his essay 'Pirandello e il pirandellismo.' In 1954 he began collaborating with literature and ethnology magazines published by Salvatore Sciascia in Caltanissetta. In 1956 he published Le parrocchie di Regalpetra, an autobiographic novel inspired by his experience as an elementary school teacher in his home town. In the same year he moved to teach in Caltanissetta, only to move again to Rome in 1957. In the autumn of that year he published Gli zii di Sicilia, including sharp views about themes such as the influence of the US and of communism in the world, and the 19th century unification of Italy. After one year in Rome, Sciascia moved back to Caltanissetta, in Sicily. In 1961 he published the mystery Il giorno della civetta (The Day of the Owl), one of his most famous novels, and in 1963, the historical novel Il consiglio d'Egitto (The Council of Egypt), set in 18th-century Palermo. After a series of essays, in 1965 he wrote the play L'onorevole (The Honorable), a denunciation of the complicities between government and mafia. Another political mystery novel is 1966's A ciascuno il suo (To Each His Own). The following year Sciascia moved to Palermo. In 1969 he began a collaboration with Il Corriere della Sera. That same year he published the play Recitazione della controversia liparitana dedicata ad A.D., dedicated to Alexander Dubcek. In 1971 Sciascia returned again to mystery with Il contesto (The Challenge), which inspired Francesco Rosi's movie Cadaveri eccellenti (1976). The novel created polemics due to its merciless portrait of Italian politics. Same was the fate of Todo modo, in this case due to its description of Italian Catholic clergy. At the 1975 communal elections in Palermo, Sciascia ran as an independent within the Italian Communist Party (PCI) slate, and was elected to the city council. In the same year he published La scomparsa di Majorana, dealing with the mysterious disappearance of scientist Ettore Majorana. In 1977 he resigned from PCI, due to his opposition to any dealing with the Christian Democratic party. Later he would be elected to the Italian and European Parliament with the Radical Party. Sciascia last works include the essay collection Cronachette (1985), the novels Porte aperte (1987) and Il cavaliere e la morte (1988). He died in June 1989 at Palermo. A number of his books, such as The Day of the Owl (Il giorno della civetta) and Equal Danger (Il contesto), demonstrate how the Mafia manages to sustain itself in the face of the anomie inherent in Sicilian life. He presented a forensic analysis of the kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro, a prominent Christian Democrat, in his book The Moro Affair. Sciascia's work is intricate and displays a longing for justice while attempting to show how corrupt Italian society had become and remains. His linking of politicians, intrigue, and the Mafia gave him a high profile, which was very much at odds with his private self. This high profile resulted in his becoming widely disliked for his criticism of Giulio Andreotti, then Prime Minister, for his lack of action towards freeing Moro and answering the demands of the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades). Sciascia was part of a House of Deputies investigation into Moro's kidnapping, which concluded that there was a certain amount of negligence on the part of the Christian Democrat Party in their stance that the state was bigger than a person and that they would not swap Moro for 13 political prisoners, even though Moro himself had stated that the swapping of innocent people for political prisoners was a valid option in negotiations with terrorists. However, senior members of the party conveniently forgot this stance and even went as far as to say that Moro had been drugged and tortured to utter these words. Sciascia's books are rarely characterized by a happy end and by justice for the ordinary man. Prime examples of this are Equal Danger, in which the police's best detective is drafted to Sicily to investigate a spate of murders of judges. Focusing on the inability of authorities to handle such investigation into the corruptions, Sciascia's hero is finally thwarted. Sciascia wrote of his unique Sicilian experience, linking families with political parties, the treachery of alliances and allegiances and the calling of favors that result in outcomes that are not for the benefit of society, but of those individuals who are in favor. His 1984 opus Occhio di Capra is a collection of Sicilian sayings and proverbs gathered from the area around his native village, to which he was intensely attached throughout his life.

 

 

 

See if zenosbooks.com has any books for sale by this author

 

 

---