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A couple of years ago, after a long-ish hiatus, Garry Disher published a new novel about his character Wyatt, under the title "Wyatt." The novel contained several homages to an obvious model for Disher's series, the Parker novels by "Richard Stark," alias Donald Westlake. Wyatt was published in the U.S. by Soho Crime,  which subsequently released two older Wyatt novels, Port Vila Blues and the new Fallout, which is a sequel to Port Vila Blues. Though Wyatt is a newer book, it is in many ways a throwback to the earlier books, with Wyatt as a cool and solid character, almost a sociopath in his distance from normal social interaction. Port Vila Blues and Fallout seem to be from later in the thief's career: he is looking for a last score, and feeling both his age and his isolation. Port Vila Blues introduced a female character (not that unusual in the Wyatt books) but in this case she reappears in the sequel, which is unusual. Liz Redding is a cop running after ...

I picked up a copy of Milos Urban's Seven Churches before traveling to Prague, since a crime novel is often a good guide to the streets of a strange city. Urban's book pays off in spades in that regard, though it isn't exactly a crime novel. The cover claims that the author is the Czech Republic's answer to Umberto Eco, which isn't an exact comparison: but Urban's novel is a philosophical potboiler, somewhat in the fashion of Eco's novels. The lead character and narrator of Seven Churches is (or was) a policeman, but a failed one. When the novel begins, he has been disgraced, but happens upon a grisly crime: a man has been hung in a bell tower by his heel, swinging back and forth with the motion of the bell. The hanged man survives, and through the investigation of that crime, the narrator's career is somewhat redeemed, as the case becomes linked to the death of a woman he was supposed to be protecting, before being kicked out of the force. Other gruesom...

I had seen several reviews of The Bat comparing it not altogether favorably with the later Harry Hole novels by Jo Nesbø, but when I had the chance (via NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday) to see a copy i jumped at the chance. And I thought The Bat was very good, showing both Hole and Nesbø at an early stage of what has become one of the most succesful Scandinavian crime series. The Bat begins with Harry's arrival in Sydney, Australia, where a Norwegian woman has been murdered: he has been sent both to aid the Sydney police and to redeem his own career (already disgraced by his alcoholism). The book takes a while to get going, as Harry makes contact with various police, friends of the dead woman, and other denizens of Sydney, including members of an underground that includes prostitutes, pimps, and performers in a touring circus and a boxing circuit. When the book starts to pick up momentum, all the characteristics of the later books are present: Harry's self-destructive behavior, v...