favorite titles

I have yet to read this, but I love this title:  Goodbye, She Lied

 

Rilke on Black

Found a copy of Ken Bruen’s Rilke on Black at a used bookstore.  It’s very brief, but the book took me awhile, since I put it down in the middle and wasn’t eager to pick it back up.  It is interesting, though, to read a early work of an author you’ve read quite a bit of recently.  There was a bit of a mix of Bruen’s later Max and Angela, Brant, and Jack Taylor novels, and, there are, of course, themes and a style that are developed more fully in the later books.

The book is narrated by Nick, an ex-bouncer, who is something like Jack Taylor by the book’s end.  He’s the only character the least bit likable, and that’s not just a trick of the point of view, I think; he’s the underdog despite his size and violence.  His neighbor, Dex, is a bit of a wired sociopath, interesting and all over the place.  LIsa– talkative, pretty, black, hard, and the instigator for a poorly conceived kidnapping plot that is the book’s center– doesn’t really hold together as a character for me.   Nor does the Rilke-quoting kidnap victim.  (It probably didn’t help that I was reading Rilke but thinking Rimbaud for the first half of the book).

The first part of the book reads quickly as Bruen deftly paints his three characters.  The plot is unlikely in the extreme, rather like Bust with some brains in London, but there’s really little suspense and empathy for me, particularly in the middle of the book.   Inspector Brant himself does appear briefly in a late scene in the book, and London noir is a feature that appeals, but it is following Nick through the third (and last) part of the book that’s the most fun. 

As with other characters, Nick has an internal soundtrack of country, pop, and rock songs. Nick’s sometime girlfriend Bonny jumps off the page. There are riveting moments, but none that relate to the central plot, I think.

I’m not done with Bruen yet.  I’m on to London Boulevard, which I believe may be made into a movie, and the White Trilogy. I haven’t decided about the other Max and Angela books.