April 2010

Here's a crime novel that drags you back twenty-five years to the flashy eighties. 1985: Mitterrand's first term is limping to the finish line, the Socialist Party is about to lose the 1986 elections. Four French citizens are hostages in Lebanon. Sound familiar? This noir puts you right in the middle of political scheming and dirty money.

"Love is the dagger that stabbed me in the back." Let me be honest: I wouldn't have watched this if it weren't for a friend's recommendation. The story of the so-called "Blood Countess" isn't exactly my thing. But sometimes you go where curiosity leads you. And Julie Delpy behind the camera? That's worth something.

Forget tourist London. Brixton, south of the Thames, is where real London lives—multiethnic, multicultural, alive with color. In a dry cleaner under the railway tracks at Loughborough Junction, that's where this story takes place. Duffy knows how to make a place breathe on the page.

Still digging into DOA's work. This one's set in Moissac in the Tarn & Garonne—a town I basically consider mine. You know: Romanesque abbey, golden Chasselas grapes, rolling hills. But DOA finds darkness in familiar places. That's what good crime fiction does.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec / Luc Besson. An adventurer who travels the world solving mysteries, hunting treasure, and writing books about it. But Adèle's got a big problem: her beloved sister is dying. Period adventure with modern energy. Besson doing what he does.

A nice idea borrowed from a friend. Regular readers know I love painting. My walls are covered with reproductions: Nicolas de Staël, Chagall, Degas, Egon Schiele. But I also own four original canvases. Here's one of them. Sometimes you need to live with art, not just look at it in museums.

Mohammed grew up in Saint-Ouen, the 93. Second-generation immigrant, son of a Renault factory worker who came to France in the seventies under family reunification laws. Brilliant student, well supported by his family. Then something shifts. Marouane writes about identity and contradiction without flinching.

With Auster, one story always hides another. Same deal here. This book is the story of a book—one that should've been called "1967"—started by Adam Walker forty years later. Layered narratives, unreliable memories, the past bleeding into the present. Classic Auster territory.

Berlin isn't beautiful in the postcard way—not the kind of city where you whip out your camera every two minutes squealing. But it's a city where you feel good: wide avenues, green spaces, room to breathe. A city that still carries its history in its bones.

The story of an American dreamer. In 1881, New York is still becoming itself—a city rising from the ground. Martin Dressler grows up in his father's cigar shop. Early on, he shows real talent for commerce. Millhauser traces ambition from small beginnings to grand visions. And the cost of both.