eyes.2c Reviews

Midnight Streets  (Piccadilly Noir) by Phil Lecomber      ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Children being lured or stolen from the streets of Soho and subjected to the wiles of a crazed organisation called Ancient Order of the Unicursal based on an ancient occult order. A forbidding, gutsy novel noir complete with the gumshoe English equivalent and a host of shady characters. The time frame is between the wars, 1929. Private detective George Harley becomes involved as a consultant with Scotland Yard, supposedly to be kept quiet. Of course there’s the bent Detective who’s trying to take the glory, even if the case is more complicated than Inspector Detective Quigg could even dream. T here’s always someone who’s been bribed, or pressured and closely guarded evidence is released by the newspapers. Harley is ex MI5. His girlfriend Cynthia Masters is a gem, from an upper middle class, slightly bohemian family.  Harley’s acquainted and friendly with the various gangs around Soho. However th...

Death on the Beach (An Island Mystery #2) by Anna Johannsen. Translated by Jozef van der Voort.         A solid, enjoyable, Scandi noir read! Detective Lena Lorenzen is called out to the suicide of a fourteen-year-old girl on the small island of Föhrn part of the North Frisian islands. An area Lena is very aware of, an island she grew up on and left long ago. It's the beginning of her leave. Six days she was going to spend with Erck. A relationship that's only be rekindled for a few weeks after a fourteen year break. A call from her boss Detective Superintendent Warnke puts paid to that. Warnke has asked for a favor. The girl was a member of a strictly devout free church that the rest of community views as a cult and has little time for. On the surface Maria Logener death is a suicide. Something bothers Lena about it and she has a forensic team flown over with autopsy findings fast tracked. That suicide is a murder. Meanwhile on the personal level Lena is ha...

Roar Back (An Émile Cinq-Mars thriller #8) by John Farrow         What is it about Canadian French noir?  Possibly that gritty, understated humor, or the 'no holds barred' exposé of the underbelly of 1978 Québécois Montreal, the rivalry of gangs--the Italian Mafiosa, The Biker Gangs, and the newer guys on the block, the Russians/ Eastern bloc coteries. Sergeant-Detective Émile Cinq-Mars enters a new phase of his career, and courtesy of his old boss Armand Touton, he's at the pointy end of a problem that will spread into the gang situation. Touton wants him to lookout for a deeply embedded agent in the gang arena. Coalface, as Touton dubbed the mole, has been there for over twenty years. A situation that's been on total blackout and unknown to all except for Touton, and now Émile. Now that Touton has retired how and whom does Coalface contact if needed? A call out to a simple robbery leads to some dangerous places, including the mole's apartment block. T...

The Art of Dying (DI Wetsphall #3) by Douglas Lindsay         At first I thought what have I let myself in for. A few pages in and I was hooked. I was knee deep in vicious murders, Corporate concerns and Russian intervention. Opening with a litany of deaths caused by the hero seemed a tad daunting, but as I progressed I realized their import. This is DI Westphall's "line-up of guilt," from his MI6 days. Now they're joined by ghosts from his cases. This latest investigation begins with a football match death, links somehow to an up market care home and seems to have a whiff of Russian assistance. Westphall's church attendance is an interesting twist. Is he looking for absolution? Maybe. Release from his guilt? Who knows? His attention is caught by the line from the service, "My blood of the Covenant." My attention is grabbed by the inclusion of one of my favorite hymns, "I the Lord of sea and sky." Oh yes, there's more to this novel...

The Tanzania Conspiracy: A Max O'Brien Mystery (Max O'Brien #3) by Mario Bolduc     A strong, racey, crime noir that takes you from Tanzania to the United States and on to the north west area of Canada. From the scourge of abhorrent superstitious practices with albinism and body parts, centered in Tanzania to a black market trade in the world beyond (thanks to the dark side of the web), to the small exclusive world of American executioners in those States where the death penalty is still part of the legal system. There are two storytellers. We approach the story from the perspective of the first, Max O'Brien, a con man without pretensions. We first meet him carrying out a sting in Zanzibar. The second story teller is Roselyn Kerensky, wife of a retired executioner. How these two stories might intersect puzzled me. I kept wondering about the relevance. That was decisively put to rest as the action evolved. When Max is notified of the deaths of his ex mistress Valér...

Signal Loss   by Garry Disher                               Set in the Mornington Peninsula region, south-east of Melbourne, Australia, makes this a fascinating read, as I happen to know that region reasonably well. So I was already hooked. But then again Garry Disher is one of my fav. authors. Local knowledge gives solidarity and legs to any reading. The novel deals with drugs, deals, stolen equipment, and a serial rapist. Laconic Inspector Hal Challis of the Drug Squad and his girlfriend Sergeant Ellen Destry of the Sex Crimes Unit find their cases merging. The spread of methane-ice and it's consequences are devastating , the squalor real. Like a fast-paced, noir criminal journalist, Disher leads us across state lines whilst paying attention to the minutiae that surrounds the desolate fate of the addict and the effect on those around them. Disher uses the background of rural Australia as a laun...

Prussian Blue (A Bernie Gunther Novel #12)   by  Philip Kerr                             Like a rat on a treadmill Bernie Gunther is once more caught up in the games of those from his past. It's 1956 and  Erich Mielke, deputy head of the dreaded Stasi, has invited Gumther to dinner to put a proposition to him. Gunther refuses. That defiance comes at a price--his life. Now Gunther is on the run. Chased from Nice to Germany, pursued by a former Kripo associate, Gunther recalls the last time he saw Friedrich Korsch. 1939 a mountaintop village in Obersalzberg--Hitler's retreat. Bernie is sent to investigate a murder to ensure the safety of 'the leader' when he arrives for his birthday celebrations. The timeline is short and intense. Bernie is in danger from an unknown killer and from those who give him his orders. I vacillated between 4 and 5 stars, but came down on the side of 5 as I've...