Friday, 11 March 2016
Tuesday, 8 March 2016
City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and The Search for Truth in Tehran by Ramita Navai
Hardback: Better the lie that keeps the peace than the truth that disrupts. - Sa'adi Shirazi, The Rose Garden of Saadi
This is real Tehran: a city that is hidden from view and rarely written about, where survival depends on an intricate network of lies and subterfuge. It is a place where mullahs visit prostitutes, drug kingpins run crystal meth kitchens, surgeons restore girls' virginity and homemade porn is uploaded to the Internet and sold in the bazaars.
Plotted around the city's great central thoroughfare, Vali Asr Street, City of Lies (2014) chronicles the lives of eight protagonists drawn from across the spectrum of Iranian society. This is a world of gangsters, socialites, dutiful housewives and volunteer militiamen - ordinary people forced to lead extraordinary lives.
Based on extensive interviews and research, City of Lies is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of modern Iran, and of what it is to live, love and survive under one of the world's most repressive regimes.
About the author: Ramita Navai is a British-Iranian journalist and writer. For Channel 4's foreign affairs series Unreported World she has reported from over twenty different countries, including South Sudan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Nigeria, El Salvador and Zimbabwe. She was awarded an Emmy for her undercover report from Syria. She has also worked as a journalist for the United Nations in Pakistan, northern Iraq and Iran.
While working as the Tehran correspondent for The Times from 2003 to 2006, Ramita Navai began interviewing ordinary people about their lives, and she continued to collect these stories long after most foreign media had been banned from Iran. City of Lies is her first book and was awarded the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize for work in progress in 2012. In 2015, City of Lies won the Debut Political Book of the Year in the Paddy Power Political Book Awards. She lives in London.
Monday, 7 March 2016
Being Carried Away
"My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people." - Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995), American novelist and short story writer.
Saturday, 5 March 2016
Friday, 4 March 2016
City of Fear (A NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher Series) by Alafair Burke
Paperback: In a city full of victims, it is hard to choose just one.
Fresh-faced Indiana college student Chelsea Hart is so excited to spend the final hours of her spring break in the VIP room of an elite New York City club that she remains behind when her girlfriends call it a night. The next morning, as her concerned friends anxiously pace their hotel lobby, joggers find Chelsea's body in East River Park, her wavy blond hair brutally hacked off.
NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher catches the case and homes in on the group of privileged men who were last seen plying Chelsea with free-flowing alcohol. But before she can even gather the preliminary evidence, the gruesome murder is grabbing headlines and drawing unwanted media attention to the department. So when Ellie builds a tight case against Jake Myers, a young hedge fund manager, the department brass and the district attorney's office are elated: the case will soon be cleared, the media will tout the department's quick work, and Ellie will be a dream witness at the trial against Myers.
But Ellie has her doubts. Chelsea's murder is eerily similar to three other deaths that occurred nearly a decade ago: the victims were young, female, and in each case, the killer had taken her hair as a souvenir.
Ellie's investigation pulls her into a late-night world of exclusive clubs, conspicuous wealth, and hedonistic consumption. And her search for the truth not only pits her against her fellow cops but also places her under the watchful eye of a psychopath eager to add the prideful young female detective to his list.
About the author: Alafair Burke is the author of what the Sun-Sentinel has hailed as "two power house series" featuring NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher and Portland Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid. Alafair's novels grow out of her love for writing, her experience as a prosecutor in America's police precincts and criminal courtrooms, and her ability to create strong, believable, and eminently likable female characters. According to Entertainment Weekly, Alafair "is a terrific web spinner" who "knows when and how to drop clues to keep readers at her mercy."
A graduate of Stanford Law School and a former Deputy District Attorney in Portland, Oregon, Alafair is now a Professor of Law at Hofstra Law School, where she teaches criminal law and procedure. She is the daughter of the acclaimed crime writer James Lee Burke.
Alafair is often asked about the origin of her name, especially by readers who are familiar with the fictional character, Alafair Robicheaux, featured in her father's novels. Alafair was named for her father's maternal grandmother. It was a more common name in the United States, particularly the south, at the turn of the twentieth century. Now it is a name that belongs to her, two of her cousins, and, from what she can find on Google, ten cats, two dogs, an alpaca, and a boat.
Rating: 5/5
Thursday, 3 March 2016
Tuesday, 1 March 2016
Dead Connection (NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher Series) by Alafair Burke
Paperback: Dating can be a dangerous game.
When two young women are murdered on the streets of New York, exactly one year apart, NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher is called up for a special assignment on the homicide task force. The killer has left behind a clue connecting the two cases to First Date, a popular online dating service, and Flann McIlroy, an eccentric, publicity-seeking homicide detective, is convinced that only Ellie can help him pursue his terrifying theory: someone is using the lure of the Internet and the promise of love to launch a killing spree against the women of New York City.
To catch the killer, Ellie must enter a high-tech world of stolen identities where no one is who they appear to be. And for her, the investigation quickly becomes personal: she fits the profile of the victims, and she knows firsthand what pursuing a sociopath can do to a cop back home in Wichita, Kansas - her father lost his life trying to catch a notorious serial murderer.
When the First Date killer begins to mimic the monster who destroyed her father, Ellie knows the game has become personal for him, too. Both hunter and prey, she must find the killer before he claims his next victimwho could very well be her.
Expertly plotted and perfectly paced, Dead Connection (2007) - the first book in the suspenseful Ellie Hatcher series - advances Alafair Burke to the front ranks of American thriller writers.
About the author: Alafair Burke is the author of what the Sun-Sentinel has hailed as "two power house series" featuring NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher and Portland Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid. Alafair's novels grow out of her love for writing, her experience as a prosecutor in America's police precincts and criminal courtrooms, and her ability to create strong, believable, and eminently likable female characters. According to Entertainment Weekly, Alafair "is a terrific web spinner" who "knows when and how to drop clues to keep readers at her mercy."
A graduate of Stanford Law School and a former Deputy District Attorney in Portland, Oregon, Alafair is now a Professor of Law at Hofstra Law School, where she teaches criminal law and procedure. She is the daughter of the acclaimed crime writer James Lee Burke.
Alafair is often asked about the origin of her name, especially by readers who are familiar with the fictional character, Alafair Robicheaux, featured in her father's novels. Alafair was named for her father's maternal grandmother. It was a more common name in the United States, particularly the south, at the turn of the twentieth century. Now it is a name that belongs to her, two of her cousins, and, from what she can find on Google, ten cats, two dogs, an alpaca, and a boat.
Rating: 5/5
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