A New Zealand crime writer in the Philadelphia Inquirer

My review of Paul Cleave's The Laughterhouse appears in today's Philadelphia Inquirer.

This New Zealand crime writer knows what he's doing, and I had fun with this review. Take a look.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Paul Cleave, or a pro's prose

Paul Cleave's The Laughterhouse offers a disgraced cop at economic loose ends, a multiple murderer who dispatches his victims in extravagant ways, and chapters narrated from inside the killer's head.

That's not the freshest recipe in the crime fiction cookbook, which is one reason I'm so impressed that the novel has held my attention so far. The book is (a back-cover blurb tells me) one of revenge, survival, and impossible choices. But the story lies in the rhythm of Cleave's sentences: short and choppy with occasional longer outbursts, as if the narrator suddenly found himself too tired to stop thinking, for chapters told in first person by the indeed occasionally exhausted detective; short, choppy, with the added distance of third-person narration for the killer's chapters.

Crime  novels where the rhythm of the prose tells the story always remind me of David Peace, and so this one does. The related but distinct rhythms of the detective's and the killer's chapters do at least as much as any plot element to suggest a kinship between the two, and my only complaint through the first eleven chapters of The Laughterhouse is that Cleave uses reference as a verb (on page 54).

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Cleave's novel Blood Men won the Ngaio Marsh Award for best New Zealand crime novel in 2011, a competition for which your humble blogkeeper was one of the inaugural judges in 2010.

Read more about Paul Cleave at his Web site and about New Zealand crime fiction at Crime Watch.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Win a shelf of New Zealand crime fiction

Not everything from New Zealand is fuzzy on the outside; green, sweet, and delicious on the inside. Readers worldwide can win a set of seven New Zealand crime novels, the titles shortlisted for the titles shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award. The titles are:

COLLECTING COOPER by Paul Cleave (Simon & Schuster)
LUTHER: THE CALLING by Neil Cross (Simon & Schuster)
FURT BENT FROM ALDAHEIT by Jack Eden (Pear Jam Books)
TRACES OF RED by Paddy Richardson (Penguin)
BY ANY MEANS by Ben Sanders (HarperCollins)
BOUND by Vanda Symon (Penguin)
THE CATASTROPHE by Ian Wedde (Victoria University Press)

Quoth the king of Kiwi crime fiction, Craig Sisterson:

"Anyone can enter the prize draw simply by emailing a photo of themselves reading any New Zealand crime, mystery, or thriller title - contemporary or from days gone by - to ngaiomarshaward (at) gmail (dot) com. 

The book in your picture doesn't have to be set in New Zealand, as long as the author is associated with New Zealand (lives in New Zealand, was born or grew up in New Zealand, etc). So whether it's a well-loved copy of a Ngaio Marsh, Elizabeth Messenger, Laurie Mantell, Michael Wall, or Paul Thomas novel that's been sitting on your bookshelf for years, or a brand new New Zealand crime novel you've recently picked up from a bookstore or library, grab your camera, take a smiling photo of yourself with the book, and send it to ngaiomarshaward (at) gmail (dot) com. If you need some inspiration when it comes to finding an eligible, mystery, or thriller novel to read and photograph, check out this list of more than 80 authors and more than 250 titles here."

I like very much that the contest offers the chance to learn something and not just scarf up a prize. So get educated and enter today!

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

McGeachin and Cleave are tops down under

The Detectives Beyond Borders research branch has been so busy preparing for Bouchercon that it has neglected some antipodean crime-fiction honors.

Congratulations to Geoff McGeachin, whose Diggers Rest Hotel took Australia's Ned Kelly Award for best novel. McGeachin is a funny guy whose novels Fat, Fifty & F***ked  and D*E*D Dead! I've discussed here, and he once sent me some Vegemite along with a package of books, for which I should thank him, I think.

Over in New Zealand, Paul Cleave's Blood Men is the second winner of the Ngaio Marsh Award for best crime novel. Cleave told New Zealand's Herald on Sunday newspaper last week in an article that bears the headline "Paul Cleave: Too dark for home market"  why he was surprised to win the award. As always for things New Zealand, a hat tip to Craig Sisterson.

© Peter Rozovsky 2011