Skip to main content

The Axemans Jazz - Ray Celestin #inbetweeney

This has probably been my favourite inbetweeny so far. It was a present from my mum who liked the look of the cover. Based very loosely on real events it took place in New Orleans in the 1920s when jazz, racism and the mafia were rife.

I really enjoyed the three thronged approach used by Celestin. Who out of the three detectives was going to catch the killer?, could they all be right or were their clues/trails leading them down the garden path?

The 'catching' of the killer (sorry trying to not give too much away) was perhaps the weakest part of the book but I loved the ending and went away frantically googling Louis Armstrong to learn more.

I liked both Michael and Luca and wanted them to make up. I questioned early on how things would pan out for Luca – realistically how could he ever escape the mafia either in Italy or America?

Celestin really caught the flavour of New Orleans, the grizzly underworld of prostitution, opium and poverty coupled with the flair of its music and its general noise. I enjoyed the characters back stories even though they had no part in pushing the plot forward.

If you like crime stories but are sick of the old clichés (burnt out cop, divorced, teetering on alcoholism, traumatised from a previous case) this is a refreshing change that is well worth a read.

It's a stay on the shelfer for me


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mount by Jilly Cooper #inbetweeny

I'll start this blog with a warning, this post does contain spoilers. So if you haven't read the book then please don't read this blog, yet. Of course you should read this post just wait a little while until you've read the latest installment of Rupert Campbell Black (RCB). Warnings out of the way I'll begin. I was massively looking forward to reading this book having hugely enjoyed the previous ones. RCB is my (not so) secret trashy pleasure and has been for many years. This book had all the ingredients of a classic, pages of wonderfully named characters, a few tortured souls and of course RCB with all his horses, dogs and now grandchildren. The book got off to a good start full of characters from old but also plenty of new ones to mix it up a bit. The horse's really played a starring role in this book but I also really loved Gav and at first Gala. Yep only at first as she went strongly down hill and I bet you can guess why. RCB. Here is where I fell o...

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

When telling people which book I was reading for the book club I was surprised by the number of people who had already read it. Kind of like when you book a holiday to somewhere you have never heard of and suddenly everyone as been. Nobody had a bad word to say about it which is pretty rare so I was really looking forward to reading it. My auntie very kindly gave me a copy so I didn't need to buy it however it was widely available in Asda , Sainsburys (I told you we didn't buy food only books in Cramlington supermarkets) and Amazon stocked it quite cheaply. It was quite a large book - 500 odd pages but was a paperback, with short paragraphs and relatively short chapters. It was one of three, the others being The Girl who Played with Fire and The Girl who kicked the Hornets Nest known collectively as the Millennium Trilogy. I was intrigued to find out that Larsson died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2004. He lived an interesting life that can perhaps be said to be reflected...

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanthi

I expected to be emotionally drained after reading this one and to be honest (in a weird kind of way) I didn’t mind the thought that I would be. This was backed up by the introduction describing a brilliant young man whose writing was breath taking and whose story was devastating. Emotional rollercoaster of epic proportions was surely in store. I didn’t mind the beginning of the book although I was slightly surprised when we delved so deeply into Kalanthi's past in what was only a slim book. I was willing to gloss over the large number of references to his search as a youth to finding the meaning of life and what makes us, us as after all this was written by someone forced to ponder that very question. I also found the medical training he did vaguely interesting, I appreciated the reverence he placed in relation to the cadaver he was required to cut open as part of his medical training. However when it became apparent the actual portion of the book to do with him receiving hi...