Category Archives: fiction

Dead Point by Peter Temple (Quercus)

Posted on October 10, 2025 by drewsmith28

“On a grey whipped Wednesday in early winter, men in long coats came out and shot Renoir where he stood, noble, unbalanced, a foreleg dangling. In the terminating jolt of the bolt, dreams died.” Have a round on Jack Irish, … Continue reading →

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The Last Children of Tokyo by Yoko Tawada (Portobello Books)

Posted on October 5, 2025 by drewsmith28

“Still in his blue silk pyjamas, Mumei sat with his bottom flat on the tatami. Perhaps it was his head, much too large…” It is post apocalypse, an eco-dystopian futurescape wrapped up in a warm family narrative. Yoshiro minds his … Continue reading →

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The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Sceptre)

Posted on September 5, 2025 by drewsmith28

“He was lying on a varnished wooden board, the top of a boxed-in radiator.” The opening is slow, Andrew Miller has just turned on the fire to boil a kettle, like an episode of the Archers, quite a lot of … Continue reading →

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Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (Penguin/Viking)

Posted on August 29, 2025 by drewsmith28

“Thomas Flett relies upon the ebb tide for a living, but he knows the end is nigh” THE flap quotes the Sunday Times as saying that Benjamin Wood is ‘Britain’s answer to Donna Tart’. Except he writes better and Seascape … Continue reading →

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Broken Shore by Peter Temple (Quercus)

Posted on June 24, 2025 by drewsmith28

“Cashin walked around the hill, into the wind from the sea. It was cold, late autumn…” THIS small town crime drama is so ingrained in the Australian outback that it is a bit of a surprise to discover that Peter … Continue reading →

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An Island of Suspects by Jean-Luc Bannalec (Minotaur)

Posted on June 4, 2025 by drewsmith28

“Commissaire Georges Dupin had made a new friend.” The first few pages dispel any notion that this investigation will just be another cosy crime. It is literature. It is blue. The sea, the sky, the Bretons even have their own … Continue reading →

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The Fraud by Zadie Smith

Posted on October 10, 2024 by drewsmith28

The trigger for this exhilarating romp through literary Victoriana was a sale at the auction house of Sotheby’s. A first edition of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol sold for a record sum. The inscription was to a Mrs Touchet. Meet Eliza. … Continue reading →

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Death in Pont Aven by Jean-Luc Bannalec

Posted on October 7, 2024 by drewsmith28

THE light first drew artists to the north west of France. Most famously it was Gauguin and his portraits of girls in clogs and costumes, one of many.  Pont Aven, a sleepy one church town on a creek was where … Continue reading →

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The Black Echo by Michael Connelly (Orion)

Posted on December 6, 2022 by drewsmith28

How to write a best selling crime fiction novel Continue reading →

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The honjin murders by Seishi Yokomizo (Pushkin)

Posted on November 7, 2022 by drewsmith28

“Before recording the strange history that follows, I felt I ought to take a look at the house where such a gruesome murder was committed.” THERE is a masterly, writerly opening to this classic Japanese crimo. Yokomizo introduces himself as … Continue reading →

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