Not one of his best novels, but suitably tawdry and consistent with his affinity for low-lifes. Here we have Toddy as a grifter gold salesman who gets enmeshed in shenanigans that drag him deeper into the underworld. This gives Thompson the opportunity to work in observations about brothels, flophouses and that ultimate lowpoint, the dregs of Tijuana. Surreal (a talking dog features) and a tour of hell (I mean Los Angeles).

Writing with spare grace, this is a tale about a force that has malevolence to spare – the Sicilian mafia, and its corrosive and corrupting ways. Couched in terms of a simple murder investigation we see how thoroughly pervasive the influence of the mafia is: from witnesses who see no evil nor hear any evil, to those who actively enable crimes and fall back on the all-too-convenient crime of passion narrative to explain away inconvenient truths. He stripped the tale so that it is almost unbearable in its economy of observation. Elliptical bleakness that is a lament to the human costs. Brilliant.

Why would someone intervene with a parole board to have someone he doesn’t know released into his hands, hand him a no-show job. Can such altruism for criminals really exist? Well of course not? This is the world of Jim Thompson and here he is in deep paranoia territory. What are the angles in this small town? Well there is a font of corruption: corrupt politicians, corrupt bureaucracy, corrupt lobbyists, corrupt police, corrupt husbands and wives. Set-ups. There is no such thing as honest graft. The takeaway is that Small Town USA is a morality free zone.

Call it magisterial entertainment. No wonder he won the prizes. The control of tone shows someone at the peak of his powers. He can be loose and discursive at will and yet turn on a dime and focus the narrative, turn from literary disquisition to plot intricacies that leave you hanging on. You can’t call it Congolese gothic – even if tempted, you can’t call it magic realism although he provokes you in passing. No, this is probing, searching and vital storytelling.

Rob an entire town? Why the hell not? Swoop in like commandos, take 2 banks, payroll for the mine, jewelers and anything else. It can be done even though it sounds like science fiction. It should be done. Of course there are complications, you need the right men and good men are hard to find, you need people who are single-minded about the job, people who won’t be distracted. Well Parker isn’t convinced initially but once engaged, he is fully committed. Westlake in his Richard Stark incarnation is fully committed – no frills here, just a score, a heist with all its complications. Count me in.

Parker in full hard-boiled mode, planning a heist that others want to crash in on. Figuring out the angles is difficult, what with frequent setbacks and double-twists, not to mention the espionage quotient that raises its head complicating things even further is The Outfit’s involvement. Through it all he remains a mechanic, a professional whose sole interest is in the money. There’s a smooth-talking Eastern European spy whose angle that runs up against this mercenary outlook and it’s hard to know who will be the most ruthless. When the heist genre meets the spy caper, it’s great entertainment all around.

The film is the rare adaptation that shines and this is due entirely to the superb source material. A story driven by the language, a tone poem in the form of a hard-boiled crime piece. It’s a wonderful piece of work, the characterizations are all spot on, the cadences of the dialog are pitch perfect, Higgins is plumbing the depths of observation and seeking out the grit in the deceptions that career criminals live and die on. Beautiful writing, haunting characters that leap from the page.

Soyinka in full provocative mode, unleashes this tale of tradition meeting modernity, of Nigerian culture, knowing and proud, meeting British colonialism. Should the colonials intervene to prevent the king’s horseman from committing suicide one month after the king’s death? Is this barbaric tradition (or even feudal as the wife puts it) to be stopped? What will the son sent to the West think and how will he react? Who should sacrifice themselves? And can one judge these things? Based on a true story, this is tragedy concentrated and sharp. Soyinka loves to delineate these moral boundaries.

More novella than novel, more sketches than characterizations, a good debut concerned with the theme of immigration. Asks a simple question: why do people risk their lives on boats to try to get to Europe? and provides a few takes on the matter. Miniature portraits that are fine as they go – presumably she’ll flesh things out and aim for the more lyrical in future novels. She does have the eye but will she twist the dagger one wonders.

File under best left unread in the same pile as A.L. Kennedy’s Original Bliss and close to Iris Murdoch’s The Bell. Even an aficionado of dysfunction fails to find anything to hang onto. Advertised as a potboiler in the vein of gothic horror it’s sad that one simply doesn’t care about the narrative, one simply doesn’t care about the protagonists, schematic as they are.