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FAVOURITE (OTHER)
BOOKS :
'Red Dragon' - Thomas Harris, 1981. The first book by the master of the serial killer genre remains his best work. Harris was eons ahead of the competition even twenty years ago. Before everyone knew everything there is to know about the FBI and their profilers, Harris prescribed the formula followed by so many other writers since. Families in gentile middle-American suburbia are killed in their beds at night, their bodies laid out carefully afterwards before the killer uses fine shards of glass from bathroom mirrors on their bodies to complete his personal gratification. Will Graham, a retired FBI agent, is called in to track down the killer who hunts by the light of the full moon. The book never sags for a moment, the detail is absorbing, the sense of place is cinematic, the criminal procedure is expert and the readers quest to learn more is incessant. The vital clues are there in black and white print and when you reach the last few chapters, you wonder how you could have missed something so damn obvious. Probably one of the most suspenseful and compelling thrillers I have read, sadly never equaled since in Silence of the Lambs or Hannibal.
'Bonfire of the Vanities' - Tom Wolfe, 1982. This is the most inspirational book I have read, finished in a few days on holidays in Spain in the mid-eighties. It simply made me want to write a book. This is a thriller yet no one dies. Sherman McCoy, the lead male character, is an investment banker yet this is not even a financial thriller. He lives in Midtown Manhattan, earns a million bucks a year plus yet he is poor. It's a lifestyle book about New York in the teeming eighties, about the filthy lucre of the bull market, about the Lemon Tarts and their vacuous social whirl, about marital infidelity and mutual deception. The two lead characters hardly cross paths yet the plotting is immaculate. The only murder was committed in later years by Brian de Palma when he murdered the book and made the dire movie with Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis - my favourite scene being the vista of the huge trading floor of my current employers' New York head office in the WFC, NYC. Timeless. Compulsive.
'Den of Thieves' - James B. Stewart, 1991. This is the only work of non-fiction on my short list but it's better than mere fiction. It's the real life tale of the eighties on Wall Street; the heady days of Michael Milken with his toupee and his pals at Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc., Ivan Boesky and his inside dealing scams, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Inc. and their hostile leveraged buy-out bids, Predators Balls and balls of steel, Martin Siegel and his pals at Kidder Peabody & Co., junk bonds and worse morals, RJR Nabisco and USD 25 billion takeouts. Small bucks now but big bananas back in 1985. Armies of wealthy investment bankers and stellar deal kings with their hired-hand legal eagles pitted against downtrodden underpaid government officials from the SEC, amongst them one Rudy Guiliani, later to become the stellar Mayor of NYC in more troubled times. The author won a Pulitzer prize winner and it shows. This is a tale of human nature, big business and crimes of unparalleled proportions. Six hundred riveting pages and photos of the notorious participants - what more does one need? Fact is indeed stranger than fiction.
'The Firm' - John Grisham, 1991. The second Grisham novel remains his best work to date. His first Time to Kill is too long by one hundred pages. Other novels follow a tried and tested formula but The Firm has it all and so much more. A young ambitious likeable lawyer with a new wife and big college debts to unload. The temptation of a huge salary and a BMW - although in the movie it's a Merc. Tax dodges and million dollar offshore scams to rival any financial thriller. Critical mass with the FBI and Mafia playing their part. Exotic locations like Memphis and Grand Cayman. A cauldron like atmosphere with rising tension and fear. An escalating body count. Even a happy Caribbean ending. It's a very unique thing, a legal thriller but with no legal case at its heart. It's a role model for any aspiring writer.
'American Psycho' - Bret Easton Ellis, 1991. You either love this gory book or hate it. There are some revolting scenes, but either way allow the first sentence of the book to speak for itself: 'Abandon all hope ye who enter here is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Miserables on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Pierce & Pierce and twenty-six doesn't seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him five dollars to turn up the radio, "Be My Baby" on WYNN, and the driver, black, not American, does so.' Awesome.
'Bombardiers' - PO Bronson, 1995 This is a book without a plot. Most of the novel revolves around danish pastries, bond issues, stationary supplies, micro-waving telephones, fax machines, sales commissions and office life. Yet it's a brilliant take on greed and dishonesty with wonderfully named characters such as Eggs Igino, Coyote Jack, Nickel Sansome, Nelson Dicky, Sid Geeder and Lisa Lisa. They sell bonds to people they hate, in jobs that consume their lives. It's hilarious and satirical. Allow me to indulge myself again with the opening line. 'It was a filthy profession, but the money was addicting, and one addiction led to another, and they were all going to hell.'
'The Intruder' - Peter Blauner, 1996. Such a simple idea for a book yet so brilliantly executed. A successful Manhattan lawyer with a wife, a son and a Brownstone uptown home is harassed by a homeless former subway driver who teeters on the edge of life itself. The tale unfolds from the two wholly different perspectives of Jake Schiff and John G such that we sympathise and empathise with both in equal measure. Then the story takes a sinister turn as fear and desperation lead to a murder in the dark tunnels below Manhattans streets and a glittering legal career is suddenly under threat with a murder rap. This is a nightmarish tale of a small solo family unit fighting for its survival in the anarchic urban jungle we know so well. You can open any single scene in this book and be immediately gripped by the pace, dialogue and tension.
The Set-Up' - Paul Erdman, 1997. I find it very difficult to read other peoples financial thrillers because I always feel the over-powering need to take out a pen and to start doing some rewriting. But if I had to choose my favourite other financial thriller of recent times, then this is it. I read the novel by a Tuscan poolside in 3 days while researching my third book and the global scale of Erdman's ninth book certainly influenced me. Charles Black, a former US Federal Reserve Governor, is arrested in Basle, Switzerland on massive fraud and corruption charges, facing an iron-clad court case and thirty years hard labour, although I'm sure Swiss prisons are nice. Black is accused of stealing the ludicrous amount of four hundred and fifty million dollars - who needs this much loot to get by? His loyal friends desert him. Only his wife Sally stands by him. A daring rescue is planned. There are some superb scenes in the middle of this novel as Black flees across Europe with the authorities in hot pursuit. The veil is lifted on Swiss banking, much more so than in Numbered Account by Christopher Reich. Erdman was well ahead of the curve since the closing finale involves the use of anonymous emails to set up the final rendezvous. The cover of this book confirms that 'Erdman is the king of the financial thriller'. Ouch!
'Angels Flight' - Michael Connelly, 1999. Michael Connelly is the finest exponent of the contemporary US police detective thriller. Angels Flight is his best work to date. It's a multi-faceted tale set in Los Angeles, and born of Los Angeles. Connelly's murders are unusual. His scene of crime in this case is a late-night funicular railway in downtown LA, of which photos can be seen on his excellent web site. His victims many lives are always worth investigating. His insight into police procedure is exact and informative, never tedious. His prose is uncomplicated. His dialogue is pithy and often humorous. His varied characters are multi-dimensional. Det. Harry Bosch is a great lead. In this, his eighth book, there are interwoven themes of police brutality, corruption, racism, rape, murder, child abuse, the use of the internet and email, suspicions and hatred. Former journalist Connelly uses real events such as high profile court cases and the LA riots for excellent dramatic impact. The last few chapters of this book are a tumultuous ride, with some great twists and perfect conclusions. Connelly is now often copied, seldom bettered. Unfortunately City of Bones is the one exception but the others in the series are worth a read.
'Messiah' - Boris Starling, 1999. London is the most cosmopolitan, fascinating and stimulating city upon earth which is why I set my books there. I started the first few pages hanging around the departures lounge of London City Airport and I was immediately gripped, wanting to learn, see and know more. The opening line is 'Red sees the corpse's feet as he walks in the door.' This is an intelligent and complex serial killer tale, not surprising since the author was once a semi-finalist on BBC's Mastermind. The plot is dense and loaded with riveting detail, partly of an ecclesiastical nature. It is a whodunit par excellence, with wealthy men being murdered to a mysterious pattern, silver spoons being left in their mouths in place of their tongues. My only gripe is the somewhat irrelevant diversions to Red's waster of a brother and his rather mixed fortunes in the past behind the wheel of a car. I love the cameo London scenes, the heat of the city, airless days and steamy nights, the oppression and fear, the escalation and tension, the unique clues and red herrings. Messiah later appeared on BBC TV and came across well, although the BBC managed to introduce an entirely new priestly character played by Edward Woodward - surely quite a feat in any TV adaptation. Gruesome and explicit in places, this book remains a modern classic of its genre. |
