The mystery world lost one of its greatest practitioners when Reginald Hill passed away earlier this year. A prolific author who wrote under a number of pseudonyms, including Patrick Ruell, Charles Underhill and Dick Morland, he is known primarily for his two successful series, the Joe Sixsmith books and the fascinating Dalziel & Pascoe cases.
He also wrote a significant number of one-offs, and his last published book, THE WOODCUTTER, is one of these. The title character, Wilfrid “Wolf” Hadda, is a phenomenally rich and successful international business magnate, with a lovely home and a beautiful wife and daughter. Then it all goes wrong when, in a high-profile raid, the police arrest him for possession of, and participation in, child pornography.
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By now, everyone knows (or should know) that Raylan Givens, the lead character played by Timothy Olyphant in the FX series JUSTIFIED, was created by Elmore Leonard, arguably the country’s most popular and celebrated crime-fiction author. His legion of fans already knew Raylan from his appearances in the novels PRONTO and RIDING THE RAP, and as the protagonist in the short story “Fire in the Hole.”
Now, conveniently timed to the premiere of the TV series’ third season, comes RAYLAN, the first full-on novel to feature the laconic, Harlan County-based U.S. Marshal and his ever-present Stetson. The show’s popularity is far from the only reason to make note of this new Leonard work.
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Two characteristics distinguish Simon Strantzas from many contemporary horror authors. For one, he prefers the short story format rather than novels (making him, to paraphrase Ray Bradbury, “a sprinter” rather than a “long-distance runner”).
More notable, perhaps, is Strantzas’ preference for subtle, thought-provoking effects in contrast to the graphic, violent shocks that define much of modern horror. Both of these characteristics are wonderfully displayed in NIGHTINGALE SONGS, his third and latest story collection, available from Dark Regions Press.
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GTO: The title refers to neither a car nor a Beach Boys song, but Great Teacher Onizuka, a 22-year-old homeroom teacher who gets in hot water after admitting on a TV talk show that he once almost buried a female student alive. He plies his trade at the educational institution known as, of all things, Kissho Academy.
This is the setup of Vertical Inc.’s latest manga imported for American audiences. Tohru Fujisawa’s series — in this initial volume, at least — plays an oddball mix of mild T&A horniness and a little less mild schoolyard violence. It is a tad more than mildly enjoyable.
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Sometimes the most interesting stories in cinema take place behind the camera. Ben Taylor’s APOCALYPSE ON THE SET: NINE DISASTROUS FILM PRODUCTIONS proves that page by glorious page. While hardly the first book to tackle the subject of problematic shoots, it beats the pants off the more superficial entries, such as FIASCO by James Robert Parish (who, incidentally, provides the back-cover blurb).
One smart decision that Taylor has made in choosing which films to focus on is that he didn’t pick the obvious. Another is that roughly half of the movies turned out to be widely considered as good, such as Werner Herzog’s FITZCARRALDO or Francis Ford Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW — it just took a boatload of blood, sweat and tears to get there.
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