Look. Not everything has to be "worthy" does it? Sometimes you just want to read in order to save your eyes from atrophy.
Not sure what the target market for this is supposed to be - Bride of Frankenstein's monster wreaks havoc with the Whitby hoteliers, visits Hell (which turns out to be Whitby at Christmas) and ... ermm... that's it, really. Like "Buffy" for Agatha Raisin fans.
A detailed portrait of a nine-sixties male chauvinist. Actually, male chauvinist fails to do him justice; Alfie doesn't even realise that women belong to the same species - "birds" are all "it", rather than "she", as far as Alfie is concerned.
Bill Nuaghton's control of voice is a triumph; there is never a word that falls from Alfie Elkins's self-congratulatory lips that doesn't ring true. Forty-odd years after it was written, it is sad to think that there are plenty of men who really haven't evolved from this primitive state.
What an you say about Ray Bradbury? It has been more than seventy years since his first story was published and he still keeps finding new inspiration. This collection is from the late nineties, and his distinctive voice rings as true as ever. From the seemingly everyday to the fantastical, his short stories provide a template for any aspiring writer.
I "discovered" Elmore Leonard when Time Out wrote a feature about this unknown, ex-Western, writer sometime in the seventies. Seems he was moving into the thriller market. Some writer. Elmore Leonard is probably the boss of dialogue writing - his people speak like people, but with the heightened reality that fiction demands, Masterful. And his plots swing along, too. This one is from around 1980 - hasn't dated one minute.
