Category Archives: Literature

Isaac Newton and Other Failures

Posted on April 17, 2024 by odeboyz

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”Winston Churchill People who triumph over failure are the stuff of legends. Seemingly they possess a recipe: “If you do as I do then good things will be yours!” … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Robert Harris ~ Archangel (1998)

Posted on March 27, 2024 by odeboyz

The wonderful thing about Harris is that he’s reliable. He isn’t a book-a-year author featuring drunken, music-loving Detective Inspectors, or psychopathic vigilantes as the principal character. He writes *proper* novels. His stories are carefully plotted. Brilliantly well-written, researched and with … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Jonas Jonasson ~ The Prophet and the Idiot (Translator Rachel Willson-Broyles) (2022)

Posted on February 21, 2024 by odeboyz

Jonasson was faced with a huge challenge when writing this book. His previous book ‘The hundred-year-old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared’  sold three million copies. The novel was a comic novel written in Swedish. Jonasson had … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Tim Dorsey ~ Florida Roadkill (1999)

Posted on January 17, 2024 by odeboyz

Carl Hiaasen created zany Florida novels about the environment, corruption, casual murder and destruction all laced with quickfire humour.  He created a genre. Tim Dorsey cashed in. This book is a mini-homage by including Hiaasen in the narrative. So how … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Ben MacIntyre ~ Agent Sonya (2020)

Posted on December 20, 2023 by odeboyz

Historians often write beautifully and are highly literate. But they don’t create new genres. MacIntyre has pulled off the feat of writing biography, history and thrillers: simultaneously. He chooses remarkable and well documented stories. This provides a structure to work … Continue reading →

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Book review: Antti Tuomainen ~ The Rabbit Factor (Translator David Hackston) (2020)

Posted on November 22, 2023 by odeboyz

Definition: An actuary is someone who is too boring to be an accountant. To have a comedic thriller written with an actuary at its centre is amazing. And when that actuary is so boring he gets sacked because he doesn’t … Continue reading →

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Book Review: M W Craven ~ Fearless (2023)

Posted on November 8, 2023 by odeboyz

Lee Child’s Reacher is iconic. This novel is a rip-off. Craven has judged the market can support two Reacher-style psychopathic loners living outside the law. Both, of course, are formerly law officers, and so know all the tricks. The usual … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Michael Dobbs ~ The Final Cut (1994)

Posted on October 18, 2023 by odeboyz

Dobbs is the greatest political novelist since Anthony Trollope in the Victorian era. His political ‘insider’ status and dialogue is outstanding. This re-read was an unmitigated joy from start to finish. What I’d forgotten was that this novel – the … Continue reading →

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Book Review: Ian Rankin ~ A Heart Full of Headstones (2022)

Posted on September 25, 2023 by odeboyz

The hardest thing for a book-a-year author is character development. Some authors, like Lee Child, don’t bother. Reacher is littered with vicious, psychopathic murders, which are, loosely, righteous. Other authors, like Peter James, are drifting into mediocrity losing any connexion … Continue reading →

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P G Wodehouse on marriage

Posted on September 4, 2023 by odeboyz

He fell in love, got married—with a sort of whoop, as if it were the greatest fun in the world—and then began to find out things

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