It’s an equally good bet, then, that nobody will chortle or even simper at every entry and that there really is something...
Given the modest cover price for this cornucopia of 42 tales reprinting material from H.R.F. Keating to Michael Z. Lewin, from Sarah Caudwell to Carol Anne Davis—and including ten new stories by Marc Blake, Mike Phillips, Julian Rathbone, Keith Miles, Peter T. Garratt, Rebecca Tope, Catherine Aird, David Stuart Davies, Amy Myers, and David Wishart—it’s probably ungracious to quibble. But an awful lot of these gems of comic crime aren’t particularly funny. Mark Twain’s two chestnuts are quaintly dated, Nicholas Blincoe’s saga of his mother the bank robber whimsical, Bill Pronzini’s Nameless as Santa Claus charming, Philip Gooden’s Mideastern fable exotic and foreboding, Caudwell’s reworking of Wilkie Collins arch, but none of them is likely to evince more than a dutiful smile. Throwing so many darts at a target, however, guarantees a certain number of bull’s-eyes, and veteran editor Jakubowski, not usually noted for either his terrific sense of humor or his sharp attention to the borders that define genres (The Mammoth Book of Pulp Action, 2001, etc.), has not only rounded up the usual funny suspects—Donald E. Westlake, Simon Brett, Lawrence Block, and a nifty pair of Mat Cowards—but unearthed some unexpected treasures, from the nonstop take-that twists of Peter Lovesey’s epistolary romp to Christopher Brookmyre’s memorably incompetent post-office robbers to the straight-faced absurdity of Alex Atkinson’s “Chapter the Last.”
It’s an equally good bet, then, that nobody will chortle or even simper at every entry and that there really is something for everyone.Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7867-1002-0
Page Count: 592
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2002
Steinbeck's peculiarly intense simplicity of technique is admirably displayed in this vignette — a simple, tragic tale of Mexican little people, a story retold by the pearl divers of a fishing hamlet until it has the quality of folk legend. A young couple content with the humble living allowed them by the syndicate which controls the sale of the mediocre pearls ordinarily found, find their happiness shattered when their baby boy is stung by a scorpion. They dare brave the terrors of a foreign doctor, only to be turned away when all they can offer in payment is spurned. Then comes the miracle. Kino find a great pearl. The future looks bright again. The baby is responding to the treatment his mother had given. But with the pearl, evil enters the hearts of men:- ambition beyond his station emboldens Kino to turn down the price offered by the dealers- he determines to go to the capital for a better market; the doctor, hearing of the pearl, plants the seed of doubt and superstition, endangering the child's life, so that he may get his rake-off; the neighbors and the strangers turn against Kino, burn his hut, ransack his premises, attack him in the dark — and when he kills, in defense, trail him to the mountain hiding place- and kill the child. Then- and then only- does he concede defeat. In sorrow and humility, he returns with his Juana to the ways of his people; the pearl is thrown into the sea.... A parable, this, with no attempt to add to its simple pattern.
Pub Date: Nov. 24, 1947
ISBN: 0140187383
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1947
A fable about the consolatory and strengthening powers of religion flounders about somewhere inside this unconventional coming-of-age tale, which was shortlisted for Canada’s Governor General’s Award. The story is told in retrospect by Piscine Molitor Patel (named for a swimming pool, thereafter fortuitously nicknamed “Pi”), years after he was shipwrecked when his parents, who owned a zoo in India, were attempting to emigrate, with their menagerie, to Canada. During 227 days at sea spent in a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger (mostly with the latter, which had efficiently slaughtered its fellow beasts), Pi found serenity and courage in his faith: a frequently reiterated amalgam of Muslim, Hindu, and Christian beliefs. The story of his later life, education, and mission rounds out, but does not improve upon, the alternately suspenseful and whimsical account of Pi’s ordeal at sea—which offers the best reason for reading this otherwise preachy and somewhat redundant story of his Life.
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-100811-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
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