From the writer of the abysmal 'Drive', this book is much of the same: pseudo-philosophy, no action, boring characterisation. It really stunned me because after I finished 'Drive', I was convinced this writer was clueless. The movie adaptation had very little to do with the book, not surprisingly...
That's what we're here for, Griffin. To bear witness, to take notice. Ever doubt that, you just look into a child's eyes. When jumping into a book by James Sallis, especially the ones in the Lew Griffin series, I've learned not to expect that he'll be interested in focusing very much on plot. I ...
James Sallis's books are usually pretty short so you'd think I would be blazing through them. But they're so densely written and realized that it forces you to take your time while reading. This one is probably the densest of the existential Lew Griffin detective series so far. In this, the 4th b...
My first James Sallis book, and it qualifies as a 'discovery' of a major talent that goes beyond genre borders to write a detective story that is an existentialist meditation on race and relationships, a prose poem dedicated to the city of New Orleans and its exhilarating mix of beauty and darkne...
He Died with His Eyes Open: Derek Raymond's Novel of Who Speaks for the Dead who Don't MatterFrom the Reviewer First Edition, Abacus Press, 1984Derek Raymond was the pen name of English writer Robin Cook, 1931-1994. When he began writing the Factory novels in 1984, he took the pen name to avoi...
Chester Himes, A Life, is an autobiography of the late African-American author. The book was written by James Sallis. According to Sallis, two of Himes’ books, which are considered stories, are autobiographies. They are The Third Generation, written in 1954 and The End of a Primitive, written in1...
Rating: 4* of five The Book Description: “Much later, as he sat with his back against an inside wall of a Motel 6 just north of Phoenix, watching the pool of blood lap toward him, Driver would wonder whether he had made a terrible mistake. Later still, of course, there'd be no doubt. But for now...
Oy, James Sallis. What happened?I read the first book in Sallis' Turner series, Cypress Grove, and found it, by and large, to be a perfectly fine start to what I think of as "testosterone cozies": you know, those male mystery series where a paragon of male competence incisively cooks, screws, que...
After having read Drive and its underwhelming sequel Driven, I had come to think of James Sallis as a writer of sparse and short crime fiction who succeeded most in moments of violence or action. Death Will Have Your Eyes proves that impression incorrect. Whilst Sallis, in this earlier novel, sti...