Phantom Prey. John Sandford. Pocket Books (2009)

A fast paced and very enjoyable thriller, and an excellent entry in the "Prey" series of novels by John Sandford. A woman arrives home and finds blood splatters and her daughter is missing. She involves Lucas Davenport, a Minnesota law enforcement agent in the case. Davenport is reluctant to become involved as there is no body, as other murders take place that strongly seem to be linked to the disappearance of the woman's daughter the case develops into serious affair. There is a secondary narrative concerning a Lithuanian drug dealer who has fled and his wife is under surveillance while the police await his return. The two threads are nicely structured and paced, they remain separate and the reveals in each are very well done and the final resolution for each is convincing and very satisfactory.

John Sandford has a cheerfully cynical style and a tremendous gift for creating interesting and credible characters. There is a big cast and they are all well realised, even the small parts have clear and distinct voices. This gives the book a great context, the various threads are nicely played out with a strong and spiky humour. The biggest problem with the book is Lucas Davenport, he is just not a likable character. This is not a fatal flaw, the surrounding cast provide enough of a counterbalance, it is annoying. It would be fine if it was the author's intent that Davenport be annoying, this does not appear to be the case. I get the impression that Davenport is intended to be charismatic, spiky but with enough charm to bring the reader on to his side. This is still a gripping and very entertaining thriller.

Mail. Volume 3. Housui Yamazaki (Writer & Artist). Dark Horse Magna. (2007)

The third volume of contemporary ghost stories maintains the very high standard of the previous volumes. There is no overarching continuity between the volumes so that they can be read independently without any loss. The opening story does strike a very different note, it opens with the series narrator, the ghost detective, Akiba, recounting an episode from his childhood when he was blind. The artwork for this episode is very nicely done and distinctively different to the art anywhere else in the series. The resolution to the story is equally very different. Housui Yamazaki does not do a great deal more with the set up created in the first story, it is followed up in the second story and then it fades away as a dramatic issue.
The remaining stories are concerned with how people come into contact with ghosts and how Akiba resolves the situation. As ever the set ups are cleverly done, anchored in contemporary life, one haunting is done via a mobile phone. The stories are all short, they all are very carefully paced so that that the person who is involved in the haunting is introduced and the haunting is given room to develop. This draws the reader into the story in a nice way and adds weight to the single page and double page spreads where the ghost reveals themselves. Keeping Akiba to the minimum means that he is not used up, his interventions remain effective.
For me the stand out story in this volume is one about a failed suicide/murder and the sad and finally menacing repercussions. These are too low key to be horror stories, they very effective examples of cunningly compressed storytelling, they bear re-reading as they are not dependant on a surprise to drawn in the reader. Excellent stories, a pleasure.

H. P. Lovecraft's Haunt of Horror, Richard Corben (Writer & Artist),Jeff Eckleberry (Letters). Marvel Publishing (2008)

This is a surprisingly successful adaptation of some of H. P .Lovecraft's short stories and poems. There is a fundamental difference in approach between H.P.Lovecraft and contemporary horror comics. H. P. Lovecraft creates an atmosphere by omission, he describes the reactions of his characters to events that they are unwilling or unable to describe. The events they witness, the creatures they encounter are so dreadful that they cannot find any words to adequately describe them, they can only express their own revulsion. This reaction is described with such care that the reader find themselves sharing it and their imagination fills in the details of the cause of the reaction. Contemporary horror is based on explicit portrayal of the the monsters, human or otherwise that threaten the cast, the horror lies in the detail of their actions, minutely described and presented. H. P. Lovecraft's leisurely approach does not survive transformation into contemporary preferences.

Richard Corben manages the task of being significantly more explicit than the source material with a strong fidelity to the intent and mood of H. P. Lovecraft's stories and poems. The structure of the book with the comic version followed by the full text of the story or poem that inspired it demonstrates Richard Corben's skill as a writer as well as showcasing his staggering artistic talent. The art is not black and white, the amazing multitude of shades of grey used add depth and subtlety to the stories that capture the atmosphere of the stories and poems. The cast and the settings they inhabit are drawn with tremendous solidity so that the appalling events they are entangled in have weight and credibility. The monsters come out of the shadows, not very far however and the restraint serves them well, the centerpiece remains the fear and confusion of the human cast. Superb.

A Darker Domain. Val McDermid. Harper (2009)

A very well structured and tightly plotted crime story. When the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Scotland is killed in a bungled ransom handover and her infant son, also kidnapped, vanishes there is a twenty year gap before a chance discovery in a ruined villa in Italy brings the case back to life. D.I. Kate Pirie from the Cold Case squad is assigned the case and finds that the details are hiding more than they reveal. At the same time D.I. Pirie is investigating the case of a man who disappeared during the miners strike in 1984, the accepted explanation for his disappearance proving to be untrue there uncomfortable questions waiting to be resolved. The reveals are nicely paced and the structure of flashbacks does not impede the narrative in any way, they give it weight and increase the forward motion of the plot.

Val McDermid creates a interesting and varied cast and switches the action between Scotland and Italy, the past and the present with fluid skill. The conflicting interests of the main characters in wishing to bury or uncover the past is developed to considerable dramatic impact. This book engaged me right down to the very satisfying conclusion.

The signal failure in the book was the presence of a stupid male senior police officer who had difficulty with a brighter female subordinate. This addition of a dreary crime fiction staple added nothing to the book and detracted from it when it was shoehorned in. In particular the vibrant exchanges between D.I.Pirie and a truly competent and very powerful male character underlines the limpwristed quality of her interactions with her manager. An annoying blemish on an otherwise gripping thriller.

The Ice Princess. Camilla Lackberg. HarperCollinsPublishers (2009)

An excellent crime story that proceeds at a leisurely pace and with a very large cast. A woman is found frozen in her bath in a small fishing town in Sweden, Erica Falck a writer who is in the town after the death of her parents was a childhood friend of the dead woman, Alexandra. Erica is a writer who is struggling with her current project and finds the idea of writing about the dead woman intriguing. She has never forgotten Alexandra and the sudden way her friendship ended. When it becomes clear that Alexandra has been murdered Erica's curiosity about her grows greater. Patrick Hedstron, the local detective investigating the murder finds his investigation crossing with Erica's in surprising ways.

Camilla Lackberg does not hurry the story in any way, it unfolds at a very deliberate pace with a very large cast being introduced and their actions and thoughts followed. The layers of people's lives that are revealed are carefully woven together to create a wonderful context for the action, the reveals are slowly released and they carefully create a picture of staggering cruelty and selfishness. The calm pacing of the book and the consistently humorous approach to her cast serves to finally underscore the bitter corruption that rests at the heart of the story.

This is a very engaging book, the cast are lively and very well described, they interact with each other very naturally and effectively and the time the author has taken with each of them is very well spent. Camilla Lackberg has a wry and most affectionate eye for the gap between what we want others to think of us and what we are really doing and Erica and Patrick are realised with great warmth. This is very high quality fiction and a superb crime story.

Spaghetti Western. Scott Morse (Writer & Artist). Oni Press (2004)

A really clever and substantial comic that manages to be drenched in the spirit of the spaghetti westerns while the action takes place in a contemporary urban setting. Two men in western garb, ride on horseback up to a bank and attempt to rob it. Unsurprisingly the robbery does not go to plan, the way is does not go to plan is creatively presented by Scott Morse. The planning for the robbery is unexpected and sharp and the resolution is thoughtful and completely satisfactory. The story is very slight and does not try to be more than it is, it is an carefully constructed incident rather than a full blown drama and it is not stretched into something it is not. The book is drawn in single panel pages which assists with the pacing, a greater number of panels would have hurried the story too much and detracted strongly from the atmosphere. Like the films it is not in a hurry to get to the action, it uses an extended focus on the cast to create drama as much as the actions. The sepia tones used are perfect for the rather impressionistic artwork, the details are sketched in rather than presented, the focus is on the faces of the cast.This comic is a quick read, it contains a considerable creative intelligence and artistic weight , Scott Morse is a very talented comic book author, this book is a flavoursome pleasure.

Solomon Kane. The Castle of the Devil. Scott Allie (Writer), Mario Guevara (Art), Dave Stewart (Colours). Dark Horse Books. (2009)

Solomon Kane is a Puritan who believes in facing evil with a sword and a pistol, he is a grim and dour man who follows his duty to his god and his conscience without reserve. Lacking any superpowers or a wide emotional range he is a difficult character to portray well in a comic. The creative team on this book do a great job with Solomon Kane, they give him a credible context to act in and they make a tremendous dramatic virtue out of his implacable nature. They do this by surrounding him with a large and varied cast who provide the colour and emotional backdrop that makes Solomon Kane stand out by contrast.

Solomon Kane is introduced via an ambush on his camp by robbers, this quickly and effectively establishes Kane as a savage fighter, rescuing a child hanging from a gibbet shows his more merciful side. Kane encounters a fellow Englishman, John Silent and they end up going to the castle of Baron Von Staler, the man who had hung the boy. Kane intents to meet the Baron and deal harshly with an evil man if that is needed. The baron's castle is referred to by the locals as The Castle of the Devil. Kane and John Silent are greeted as welcome guests into the castle and the story proceeds to take a very satisfactory route to a enjoyable and thoughtful resolution.

The cast are given room to breathe and the various plot strands are cleverly revealed and then equally cleverly knotted together. Kane who is more of an elemental force than a human is contrasted well with the rest of the cast who are full of life and vigour, all pursuing their various agendas with energy and will. The art has a slightly scratchy look which serves the story very well as does the vibrant colouring. Low key, gripping, this is superbly executed and thoroughly entertaining comic.