My thanks (again!) to David Isaak for drawing my attention to this review in the Washington Post.
Some pull-out quotes:
R.N. Morris's lively, literate "The Gentle Axe"
"The Gentle Axe" is a deftly plotted, enjoyable literary thriller. It's not another "Crime and Punishment," but it's a novel that, once begun, you're likely to read all the way through.
I google trawled another review too. From a site called BookLoons. The reivewer there calls it a 'top-notch mystery'.
See you at The Rap Sheet!
7 comments:
Much as I'd like to take credit for noticing the Washington Post review, I was steered to it by a mention on David Thayers blog. (Let's see if I can post a link in a comment for once without screwing it up!)
Thayer reviews for the Philadelphia Inquirer, January Magazine, and sometimes on his own blog, so he's always more up on these things than I am.
You may be interested to know that a belated review of 'Taking Comfort' just went up at TQR:
http://www.tqrstories.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=127&Itemid=179
Best Regards,
Lalo Fox
Oh, thanks for pointing that out David. But you were the one who pointed out that he had pointed it out. If you get my point.
Thanks for that Lalo. I appreciate it. Yes it is an odd little book. But you wrote a very perceptive review, so thank you. Unfortunately I don't understand German (?) so there was a word in there I didn't get. Sorry, my ignorance. Which just goes to show, the writers are never as clever as the reviewers!
Hello, Roger ~
The word schlimazel (the only one of its variant spellings Word will accept) is Yiddish.
It's a portmaneau of German 'schlim' (thin, lacking) and Hebrew 'mazel' (luck). It designates a person whose luck is so bad that any effort he makes comes to naught.
It contrasts with schlemiel (a word that has crept further into the idiom), which is a person to whom bad things happen because he's clueless.
Ah, actually, I wondered whether it was Yiddish, which was why I put in the question mark.
Speaking of "Taking Comfort", are there more works forthcoming from Roger (as opposed to RN) Morris?
Hi David. I'd like to write another 'Roger' novel some time, but I don't know whether I'll be allowed to for a while!
I think I might be going to do a rap sheet piece about having two personae.
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