He wants to be buried in a 1958 pink Cadillac, and the San Francisco gypsies want to go in style, so two world-class con artists, Rudolph and Yana, briefly ally to bilk local car dealers and the California Citizens Bank of 31 Cadillacs. In this case from the files of Daniel Kearny Associates, whose adventures Gores returns to for the first time since 1978, two gypsies are vying for the title of king (or queen) should the reigning Romany monarch, lying ill in Steubenville, Iowa, kick off. 32 Cadillacs (Mysterious Press, $18.95) is a fine read, full of vivid Romany characters who are virtuosos of venality. This is a story with a real, compelling pulse.ĬITING HIS extensive research, Joe Gores tries to head off criticism on this front at the start of his new novel about a colossal gypsy con game, but if the Romanies have an anti-defamation league, I think it will be knocking on his door. What follows must perforce be somewhat anticlimactic, but Pirincci's rhythmic and melodious sentences, forcefully translated from the German by Ralph Noble, are irresistible. Extracts from these pages make up a section of the book that is at once spellbinding and sickening, not the part you want to read just before retiring to your dreams.
Preterius, a kind of Mengele of animal research. In fact Francis uncovers the journals of a Dr. The very home to which Gustav has brought him once housed a research experiment that explains why so many of the neighborhood's Felidae look injured or ill. With the help of a battle-weary bruiser named Bluebeard, who refers to humans as can-openers, and a computer-skilled Brown Havana cat named Pascal, Francis painstakingly uncovers along with the murders the very sick history of his new, shall we say, fatherland. It's not the first victim, and certainly not the last, of an evidently mad killer who strikes only the amorous.
Moving into a new neighborhood with his forlorn human master, Gustav, Francis soon stumbles across a corpse, a Felidae (the latin name for the entire wild and domesticated cat family) with its throat ripped out. Anyone who has seen the dark French movie "Baxter," about a dog who thinks, will have an idea of what to expect from Felidae.Ī savvy cat named Francis tells the story in the best Chandleresque tradition, leavened with wry observations on humankind. They are a subservient nation, commenting on their human companions and doing their best to live in a dangerous world. It's a spellbinding descent into a parallel world where cats coexist uneasily with oblivious homo sapiens. Akif Pirincci is not the first writer to feature cats as detectives, but Felidae (Villard Books, $19), selected as Germany's best crime novel in 1990, is not your average adorable feline cozy. THESE days in the realm of the mystery it's raining cats and dogs, but rather more cats than dogs.
0 kommentar(er)
