Say Books

Our second ebook, No-Brainer, has just become available for sale.

The novel by Zirk van den Berg is the first in a series of mystery romps featuring sculptor cum blackmailer Jules Dijkstra.

Read more on the book’s page or find No-Brainer at Amazon.

* The current version is v1.06, updating one or two small text details.

James McClure’s first crime novel featuring Lieutenant Tromp Kramer and Constable Mickey Zondi, The Steam Pig, appears on a couple of Top Ten lists for police procedurals. The setting, like that of my first crime story, is South Africa. So I was very keen to read the book. Doing so, however, wasn’t the unmitigated pleasure I had hoped for. The reasons are complex.

It is clear from the first line that McClure is a witty writer: For an undertaker George Henry Abbott was a sad man.

If that’s not a great first line, I don’t what is. The Steam Pig has a great many equally delightful sentences and some wonderful twists, though partly offset » Read the rest of this entry «

After reading seven Swedish crime novels in a couple of weeks, I’m even beginning to think of street names as Thisgatan and Thatgatan. But even more curious is the fact that Swedish crime books have become so popular in the English-speaking world.

Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson may have become popular on their own merits anyway, but perhaps neither of them would even have written crime stories if it hadn’t been for » Read the rest of this entry «

Some people don’t understand the difference between maths and art.

This thought is one I’ve had for many years, knowing what it means, but without bothering to explain it to myself or others. Until now.

When the thought first came to me, it was in response to some clever story, now long forgotten. I still feel the same way when I read books where the principal subject seems to me to be the virtuosity of the author.

It gives me the same slight distaste I get when » Read the rest of this entry «