NEW ZEALAND WRITERS’ EZINE
July 2007 –

Liz Allen, Director of the NZ Authors Society has kindly given permission for me to reproduce these reviews from the July issue of New Zealand Writers EZine.

I really value my sub to this excellent ezine. If you are interested in subscribing, the annual fee sub is most reasonable, then contact her at director@nzauthors.org.nz. Website: http://www.authors.org.nz/

BOOK REVIEWS compiled by Conor Quinn

Next month the books editor will be Tina Shaw, and from August we will be featuring New Zealand books only. If you are interested in reviewing, or have a forthcoming publication you’d like us to consider, please email programmes@nzauthor.org.nz


The Unquiet, by Carolyn McCurdieLongacre Press, 132 pages, $16.95

Reviewed by Pam SladeThe Unquiet is an unusual fantasy for young adults, with some patches of beautiful prose as the adventure unfolds. When the planets in our universe begin to disappear, the people shrug and carry on. When parts of the earth begin to disappear, people are chosen and given gifts to change the process. Down-under in New Zealand, Tansy is a cheeky and disruptive girl in the classroom, while Anaru often falls asleep during lessons. Anaru insists he’s going to be her friend, but Tansy knows nobody wants her. After all she wears an ugly brown jersey and has a bad attitude.

When their familiar world is changed they have to find a way to use their knowledge and join with Quiet, to solve the problem. With guides from another realm they go into the heart of the earth. Maori myths joined to spirituality are combined, to stop the destruction of earth.I enjoyed the idea of this tale suitable for age ten upwards.

In some places I felt it had been over edited, making the story flow stagnate in some places. A perfect story for losing yourself in another reality; especially on a cold winter day.


Incognito, by Jessica Le Bas AUP, 78 pages, $25

Reviewed by Sue FitchettI enjoyed reading and re-reading this interesting first collection.

Re-reading Incognito I further appreciated how Jessica Le Bas had worked on its structure, leading the reader from the more accessible, even simple, language and diction of the first section, ‘you’re kidding’, with its child perspective on the world, to the denser language of some of the later sections. The epigrammatic section titles were intriguing, working on many levels e.g. ‘there’s a love’.

Some poems stood head and shoulders above others in terms of language play, in making that wonderful poetic leap from the world to the personal. ‘There’s a love’ is a poem that showcases Le Bas’s poetic skills; fresh strong immediate imagery, and fine use of colloquial and conversational language. Le Bas has heeded William Carlos Williams when he said “each speech having its own character, the poetry it engenders will be peculiar to that speech in its own intrinsic form”. Lines like “Ask for me back,/if you have to, says my dad” has the real world immediacy Williams sought.

Le Bas’s poetry is redolent with multiple voices, e.g. children, neighbours, lovers, and, also, often well bedded in the semi-rural landscape Le Bas inhabits. Le Bas creates freshly sharp juxtapositions and metaphors e.g. “A collection of houses/where one window watches your face” (from ‘man at Oturehua’). In her strongest poems she uses the above skills, plus fluidity in lineation for example, ‘and I have something to expiate’.

I realise poets want to display their poetic literacy by mirroring styles or themes of other poets and thus sub-title poems as “after…(so & so)”, but towards the end of Incognitio I became irritated with the number of poems of this ilk. Le Bas has her own strong style and developing voice and needs no on-going imitation of other poet’s voices, themes and styles.

Step on a Crack, by James Patterson & Michael LedwidgeHeadline, 308 pages, $32.95

Reviewed by Lisa Vasil

James Patterson is a best-selling author with legions of fans worldwide, who forgive somewhat dodgy writing and characterisation in favour of a fast-paced and punchy plot. Unfortunately, I am not one of those fans.Our hero is Detective Michael Bennett, who really is too good to be true. He divides his time between his job as a New York homicide cop, his ten children and his dying wife. The villains are a group of terrorists who storm a former First Lady's funeral and take the entire celebrity congregation hostage. Barricaded in the church, they demand millions of dollars in exchange for their high-profile hostages, or they will start executing them.

Bennett, who conveniently trained in hostage negotiations, finds himself as lead on the case. As his family problems escalate and the terrorists start killing, Bennett's every move seems to be anticipated.

The criminals are always two steps in front, culminating in an explosive escape attempt in which Bennett's career and life is on the line. The addition of a co-author doesn't seem to have tempered Patterson's love affair with italics and exclamation marks, but over-looking the characters all speaking like over-enthusiastic eight-year olds, I was caught up in the rollicking story. Until an obvious plot twist derailed it for me - a tired and re-hashed 'surprise ending' Patterson has used in at least three of his other novels.

Disappointingly, his plots are formulaic. A successful one no doubt, but it's time to change the formula. This 'master of suspense' is getting predictable.

The Colditz Legacy, by Guy Walters Headline, 402 pages, $24.99

Reviewed by Kath O’Sullivan

This story follows the fortunes of two officers, Hartley and Royce, who were captured when the British forces pulled out of Greece in 1941. They escape but are recaptured and moved to Colditz Castle, which the Germans consider escape-proof. Hartley and Royce do escape from Colditz but Royce is shot as they cross the border into Switzerland and he persuades Hartley to leave him behind.

The story then moves to London 1973. Hartley, a senior officer in M16 gets a tip that Royce is alive and once again in Colditz, which is now used as a mental hospital by the East German authorities. To assuage the guilt he has always felt since he left his wounded colleague, he makes an unofficial visit to Colditz to discover the truth.

This tale of espionage and secret deals pulls the reader along. Like all good thrillers there are twists and turns in the plot, and the obvious is seldom what it seems. Hartley soon finds it difficult to know whom to trust, especially when it turns out that some of those he thought were on the side of the free Western nations, have been double-dealing for years.

Readers who have read the true stories of life in Oflag IVc, the German name for Colditz Castle, will not be disappointed by this fictional account of how the prisoners lived.

The scenes set behind the Iron Curtain are so true that, besides being a genuine thriller, I think this could also be classed as a historical glimpse of what life was like behind the Iron Curtain before the Berlin Wall came down.

If you like thrillers laced with spies and double agents this is a book for you.

Back to Bologna, by Michael DibdinFaber and Faber, 223 pages, $35.00

Reviewed by Lynda Finn

When Aurelio Zen was blown up in 'Blood Rain', there was a sense of shock and dismay such as that felt by Sherlock Holmes fans when Conan Doyle pushed his detective over the Reichenbach Falls.

Avid readers of Dibdin's stylish, clever books love this world-weary, low-key Italian policeman, whose private life never seems to rise above perplexing. With an always understated grace he fights corruption, the Mafia and other low-life, as his own crumbles.

(Include Bookman Beattie in this group!)

But Back to Bologna seems to contain clear indications that Dibdin is determined to phase Zen out, come what may. Whilst other Aurelio Zen mysteries were clearly about the way the cynical policeman dealt with crime and the vagaries of Italian society, Back to Bologna has only an occasional and unsympathetic appearance of Rome's finest.Zen is now a shambling, raving hypochondriac, going off into an hysterical fantasy world after a simple biopsy.

His latest girlfriend is on her way out when Aurelio is sent to Bologna to discover why the owner of a football team was murdered by being both shot and stabbed.

The story concentrates far more on the lesser characters: an ego-driven TV cook, a psychotic rich kid, a female immigrant with a fantasy world of her own and a weird private detective, Tony Speranza. Whilst they should have provided support for the continuing and often humorous saga of Zen's fight with the corrupt Italian establishment (the book is, after all, billed as, 'An Aurelio Zen Mystery'), they become the principals.

Without doubt, Dibdin is a extraordinary writer, on that level alone the book is enjoyable.

He knows Italy and the Italians, having taught there for many years, but Aurelio Zen fans want far more than this brief contact with their hero.

Flying Too High, by Kerry Greenwood Allen & Unwin, 173 pages, $24.95

Reviewed by Kath O’SullivanWhat a ripping good yarn. This is a reissue of a detective novel, first published in 1990. Apparently the author, Kerry Greenwood, has written over a dozen books set in the 1920s and featuring Phryne. I enjoyed this book so much that I intend looking for others in the series.There is no stopping Phryne Fisher, amateur lady detective, when she is asked to solve a crime. Her self-confidence and determined attitude may freak out the detectives in the Melbourne Police Force, but her clients have nothing but praise for her tenacity.Phryne is a lady of many talents, equally at home at the wheel of her Hispano-Souza motorcar and at the controls of a Tiger Moth aeroplane. She is fearless, whether sky walking along the wing of an airborne plane or strapped to the rumble seat of a car hurtling along at thirty-miles-an-hour. She loves luxury, has the money to afford only the best, yet has much empathy for the underdog and treats her personal maid like a sister. Clients respect her, victims rely on her, and villains dread her.Although the setting is Melbourne, Phryne speaks with the accent of London’s flapper society and I did wonder if that was where she hailed from originally. She is a sophisticated young lady, who knows what she wants and gets what she wants, especially if the object of her desire is a handsome young man. It appears as if Phryne Fisher has none of that reticence regarding matters of the boudoir which was common in the twenties. I enjoyed this tale of dastardly kidnappers, murder most foul, distraught victims, loyal assistants, and pig-headed police officers. The characters are delightful, the pace fast.

Exposed, by Yvonne Eve Walus Pipers Ash, 68 pages, $19.95

Reviewed by Sue Vassen

This is a collection of 57 poems composed during a four-year period in which the author, despite the arrival of two babies, took part in an online poetry workshop called Word Expo. Each workshop listed prescribed words and every poem needed to use at least three. Following this system my writer's weekly meeting had a lot of fun, composed our own poems and will continue to do so.

What could be better than 57 poems, and their trigger words to get you going in a dry time/

The poet emerges as a girl who will try anything just to get the poem down; there is no writerly pride or stuffiness. There's a poem per page and a green ribbon bookmark to match the dark green cover.

This book can be ordered via the internet from the UK although the writer is resident here in NZ.