DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
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Crime Fiction with Mat Coward: October 2, 2022
New titles from Ace Atkins, TM Logan, Chris Nickson and Helen Monks Takhar
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
THE HEATHENS by Ace Atkins (Corsair, £9.99) is the latest in the series about Sheriff Quinn Colson, whose bailiwick is a rural county in Mississippi. When a local white women is murdered, opinion in town is that her rumbustious teenage daughter did it, possibly in cahoots with her boyfriend, who is not only a petty villain, but black as well.
The young couple go on the lam in a series of stolen cars, leaving the sheriff, who’s pretty sure they’re not guilty, to catch them before they manage to get themselves killed.
Brutal, shocking, suspenseful and funny, there’s always a whiff of the freak show about these books, with almost every character being a grotesque or an eccentric, living in a land that seems to be 200 years behind the rest of the world.
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DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
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