California Literary Review

Articles written for the California Literary Review:

• Trashed by Alison Gaylin
  Posted on 08 Nov 2007 in Crime Fiction, Fiction Reviews, Mystery, Thrillers
  

  These driven individuals scour celebrity garbage cans, pose as anyone but themselves, lie as though the truth was a concept to be scorned and in general have all of the journalistic ethics commonly associated with FOX News. Getting the goods on the rich and famous is all that matters in this weird league.

• Thunder Bay by William Kent Krueger
  Posted on 11 Oct 2007 in Crime Fiction, Fiction Reviews, Mystery
  

  The novel is set in the lake country of northern Minnesota and the wilds of bordering Ontario. Former sheriff Cork O’Connor has decided to take life easy with his wife and teenage daughter. He’ll fill in the slack times with a little private investigator action or at least that’s what he thinks. The short-lived halcyon period is broken when Objibwe medicine man Henry Meloux (as in “mellow”) asks Cork to find his son that he fathered more than a half-century ago in the Canadian boreal forest wild lands.

• The Fighter by Craig Davidson
  Posted on 02 Jul 2007 in Crime Fiction, Fiction Reviews, Sports
  

  James Ellroy, Cormac McCarthy and William T. Vollmann have some new company hanging out on their dark, rough, violent block. He’s Craig Davidson and here’s how he tells what he feels and sees…

• Tommy’s Honor by Kevin Cook
  Posted on 11 Jun 2007 in Biography, Great Britain, Non-Fiction Reviews, Sports
  

  Sheep wallows eventually became sand traps and the first greens were nothing more than somewhat level overgrazed patches of grass that were often covered with the residue of the feeding rabbits.

• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  Posted on 10 Jun 2007 in Fiction Reviews
  

  I read this book in one take late at night and immediately headed downstairs to kick up the fire and drink some bourbon. I was cold, chilled emotionally, stunned, awe-struck by McCarthy’s words. I mentioned The Road to a singer/songwriter friend and all he could say was “That one put me off my feed for a few days.”

• The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford
  Posted on 10 Jun 2007 in Fiction Reviews
  

  The characters are well-drawn, clear, as are locations, thought processes and motivations but all the time I’m thinking that the lead character, Frank Bascombe, is one pretentious, self-absorbed guy. Want to have an unsuccessful party? Invite this guy. Have trouble sleeping? Call up Frank.

• A Grand Tour of Asia – by Hania Tallmadge and Beverley Jackson
  Posted on 27 May 2007 in China, History, Japan, Non-Fiction Reviews, Southeast Asia, Travel
  

  I’m not sure what category A Grand Tour of Asia by Hania Tallmadge and Beverley Jackson should be put in. It’s certainly not a novel or narrative non-fiction or even a coffee table book (unless a downsized model). Other than the fact that it has a hardcover and pages inside, I’m not all that sure this one is really a book.

• The Works of Max Crawford
  Posted on 24 Apr 2007 in Fiction Reviews, Westerns
  

  Being a serious writer in a time when swill by corrupt business tycoons, politicians and not-funny comics generates advances well into seven figures is difficult, frustrating and at times disheartening.

• Walking It Off – by Doug Peacock
  Posted on 24 Apr 2007 in Biography, Nature, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  Doug Peacock’s reputation frequently precedes him as does that of his late, larger-than-life friend and father figure Edward Abbey.

• The True Account: A Novel of the Lewis and Clark and Kinneson Expeditions by Howard Frank Mosher
  Posted on 24 Apr 2007 in Fiction Reviews, Historical Fiction
  

  Enter Howard Frank Mosher and his delightfully picaresque novel THE TRUE ACCOUNT – A Novel of the Lewis & Clark & Kinneson Expeditions.

• Stewball – by Peter Bowen
  Posted on 24 Apr 2007 in Fiction Reviews, Westerns
  

  I’ll begin by saying that I enjoyed immensely the first seven or eight novels in Peter Bowen’s unique Gabriel DuPre detective series.

• Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East? by Ted Rall
  Posted on 24 Apr 2007 in Non-Fiction Reviews, Travel
  

  Who are the Stans? What are the Stans? Where are the Stans and what in the hell are they up to?

• The Right Madness – by James Crumley
  Posted on 24 Apr 2007 in Crime Fiction, Fiction Reviews
  

  No one else tells the stories like Crumley, has his voice, his confidence or absolute fearlessness when it comes to putting down the wicked, horrible aspects of human existence, foibles of the worst sort only slightly tempered by our species’ better traits.

• The Quiet Mountains – A Ten-Year Search for the Last Wild Trout of Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental – by Rex Johnson, Jr.
  Posted on 24 Apr 2007 in Nature, Non-Fiction Reviews
  

  One region I’ve always wanted to wander about in is Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental mountains, a 1,000-mile range running from near the U.S. border down towards the isthmus of Panama.

• No Man’s Dog: A Detective Sergeant Mulheisen Mystery – by Jon A. Jackson
  Posted on 22 Apr 2007 in Crime Fiction, Fiction Reviews
  

  In No Man’s Dog Jon Jackson weaves a curious juxtaposition between his long-time hero “Fang” Mulheisen, a soon-to-be former Detroit cop, and his nemesis of many years, Joe Service, an ex-freelance contractor to the Mob.