Ian Rankin is universally considered to be one of Britain’s greatest living writers of crime fiction. He has been called “the Scottish Ed McBain”, and as an admirer of McBain’s work, I was keen to…Read more…
Review: Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control, by Ryan Holiday
What we know about an author affects how we read their books. Ryan Holiday is a young businessman, a college dropout, who lives on a ranch in Texas and writes about things like marketing. Had…Read more…
The Russian people are winning
To the surprise of Russia and everyone, the Ukraine war has taken a remarkable turn in the last few weeks. Initially, the Ukrainians did well by just surviving. Then, they began a slow, systematic counter-offensive…Read more…
Review: Til Death, by Ed McBain
The 9th book in Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series may be the weakest link in the chain so far. The beginning is promising: Detective Steve Carella’s sister is getting married and on the morning of…Read more…
Review: Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921, by Antony Beevor
This door-stopper of a book is, first of all, a work of military history. Beevor doesn’t have much to say about the social, political or economic history of that tumultuous period in Russia. But he…Read more…
Review: Lady Killer, by Ed McBain
This, the eighth book in the legendary 87th Precinct series, was written over the course of just nine days, according to author Ed McBain. It’s a concise, tense account of just a few hours in…Read more…
A spectre is haunting Europe
A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of fascism. We caught a glimpse of that spectre in Sweden last weekend and we are likely to see more of it next weekend in Italy. It…Read more…
Review: Killer’s Edge, by Ed McBain
The 7th book in McBain’s groundbreaking series of police procedurals — a genre he basically invented — seems to be having a bit of fun. In previous books, McBain’s introductions and afterwords, written many decades…Read more…
Review: Killer’s Payoff, by Ed McBain
The sixth book of the 87th Precinct series continues the focus on the new detective, Cotton Hawes, who — at least from a 21st century point of view — is turning out to be rather…Read more…
Review: Killer’s Choice, by Ed McBain
The fifth book in Ed McBain’s classic 87th Precinct series introduces a new character to the detective squad — Cotton Hawes. Hawes has been transferred over from one of the richer parts of the city…Read more…
Review: Karl Radek: The Last Internationalist, by Warren Lerner
Warren Lerner’s 1970 biography of Karl Radek may be the only English language biography of this once-famous, now-forgotten Bolshevik leader. Karl Radek, born in 1885 and died in 1939 (possibly) was intensely disliked by most…Read more…
The case for space
In the last few days, NASA has twice had to abort launches of the Artemis mission to the Moon. By the time this article appears in print, there may be another attempt, a successful launch…Read more…
Review: The Con Man, by Ed McBain
Having failed to kill off Detective Steve Carella in the previous book, the 4th book in the long-running 87th Precinct series has him playing a star role. As in many of McBain’s novels, there are…Read more…
Review: Proletarian dictatorship and terrorism, by Karl Radek
At the time he wrote this in 1920, Karl Radek was a loyal Bolshevik. This short book, like Trotsky’s more famous Terrorism and Communism, was written in rebuttal to Karl Kautsky’s book of the same…Read more…
Review: The Pusher, by Ed McBain
Even in 1956, when Ed McBain wrote this book, drug addiction was a problem in the United States. Like so many of the books in the 87th precinct series (this is the third), this story…Read more…
Review: The Mugger, by Ed McBain
This is the second book in McBain’s legendary 87th Precinct series, set in a fictionalised (albeit recognisable) New York City. McBain was experimenting with the idea of a whole team as ‘hero’ of the series…Read more…
Haunted by Andrey Vyshinsky’s Ghost
Last week I sent out a message to tens of thousands of trade unionists alerting them to two bits of news. The good news, I reported, was that some workers in Poland had won a…Read more…
Review: Cop Hater, by Ed McBain
I began reading the 87th Precinct novels by Ed McBain nearly 40 years ago, having stumbled upon them entirely by accident in a library. McBain (real name Evan Hunter) is widely seen as the inventor…Read more…
Review: Kindred, by Octavia Butler
This book is a cross between Jack Finney’s time travel classic Time and Again and Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. Written in 1979 and set three years earlier, it tells the story of a young African…Read more…
Review: Journey to Karabakh, by Aka Morchiladze
This is a very strange — and to me, sad — book. It was Morchiladze’s first novel, published in 1992, and describes the journey of two young men from Tbilisi to Armenia. As Georgia began…Read more…