Andrea Camilleri competition at Pan Macmillan

To celebrate the release of Andrea Camilleri's new crime novel, August Heat, Pan Macmillan are running a competition to win a set of "terrific Euro crime books" as they enthusiastically call them. The publisher is giving away two sets of books including August Heat, Dante's Numbers by David Hewson, Woman with Birthmark by Hakan Nesser and Bleed a River Deep by Brian McGilloway (UK addresses only, I'm afraid). The competition is open until the end of June, and having had a look at the questions, I can safely say that they are not as fiendish as those of a certain retired health-care professional, who also points out a similarity between Camilleri and another featured author here, Nesser. So do give the competition a try - I can highly recommend the two books on the list I have read, August Heat and Bleed a River Deep, and would be thrilled if I could enter (which I can't as I work for a different part of the same company) so I could have a chance of winning Woman with Birthmark by the admirable Hakan Nesser.

August Heat has just been reviewed by Glenn Harper at one of my very favourite blogs, International Noir Fiction. From Glenn's review: The comedy, much less the surprises in the investigation, would be spoiled if I say much at all about the plot, so I will add only that Camilleri proves once again that he is the deserving heir to Leonardo Sciascia's terse, evocative portrayals of life in Mafia-ridden Sicily, and Camilleri adds to that deep note a light tone and comic touch that are decidedly his own.

Elaine of the lovely blog Random Jottings of a Book and Opera Lover has also written an appreciation of Camilleri and review of August Heat, which she calls "one of the best Montalbano books yet".

My own review of the book, read in a pleasant couple of hours last Sunday afternoon while others were revising for their history exams, etc, is in draft and will be submitted to Euro Crime in due course. Camilleri is, to put it mildly, a bit of a favourite of the Euro Crime reviewers: a complete list of his books with links to reviews of them can be found here.

 

Comments

[Norm]

Thanks for the link Maxine.

[Philip]

I'm not eligible for this, of course, which is a bit of a fizz. The inclusion of Brian McGilloway in Euro Crime gave me pause. I don't think I'm alone in thinking of Euro as Continental in this context, and if Ireland is included in that school, I don't see how the British School can maintain its distinction. But then I think that maybe Pan is just quite up on this. No surprise in that. After all, in this lovely week I have found a books editor of a prominent paper who chucks terms such as sociopathic, fascism and socialism at Barack Obama like a student who's just arrived at university but hasn't yet got round to the basic courses in abnormal psychology and the theories of political systems. And then the thought processes of the peoples of the EU nations are revealed in the utterly dismaying election results. But I reflect upon the fact that informs Buddhist texts but the Abrahamic religions have always and disastrously denied: there is no law of the universe that is not a law of this speck of it we're on, and one of those laws is the law of entropy, is it not? Forgive this rather digressive comment, but this week has put me in a mood. Not a good one.

[Phidelm]

Forgive outsider straying off-topic; but I'm deighted to have found your blog, Maxine: fascinating, thank you.
Have put you on my blogroll to ensure I don't miss anything on your excellent site.

[Maxine]

You are welcome here, Phidelm, and thank you for the link. I'll reciprocate next time I update my blog.

Thanks for your comment, Philip. I'm sorry that the competition does not stretch to Canada. Brian McGilloway is an interesting case as his books are set on the borderlands between Northern Ireland and Ireland - but Devlin is on the Ireland side, so on that score, as Ireland is more of a member of the EU than NI and the rest of GB (eg it has switched to the "dreaded" Euro currency), I suppose it counts. It would be nice if they (and every publisher) published more translated crime fiction, in my opinion. It is going to take them ages to get through all the Nessers, as well - they are currently up to their fourth van Veeteren book (of 10) but the author was telling us at Crime fest about his more recent series (sounds great) which we hope will also be translated.

I agree it is a pity about the politics, both on this blog and in the recent elections. Unfortunately it is just going to show that extreme, dangerous parties like the BNP and UKIP win out when all the moderate, reasonable ones are shown to be so rudderless, venal and generally inept.