Reviews are starting to come in for Tumblin' Dice and so far they're very good.
The Quill and Quire review is now online here.
There's also a good review in Publisher's Weekly that says:
Things start accelerating from the opening line, which sets the tone, engages interest perfectly, and could have come from Elmore Leonard. "The High had been back together and on the road for a couple of months playing mostly casinos when the lead singer, Cliff Moore, got the idea to start robbing them." And the avalanching pace keeps going as the band's efforts to supplement their income illegally leads to violent complications. The scheme takes a personal turn when the High decide to take revenge on a casino owner, Frank Kloss, who had ripped them off on their first contract, and continued to take advantage of them for a decade of representation. Like Leonard, McFetridge is able to convincingly portray flawed figures on both sides of the law.
And Spinetingler Magazine said, "Tumblin’ Dice is a razor sharp riveting story with a very cool vibe. Loved it. Highly recommended."
It can't be all good, of course, and this week Tumblin' Dice also got a couple of very negative reviews, but I'm not man enough to post links to those.
I also did a Q&A with OpenBook Toronto which is now online here. Some good questions including one about the challenges and pleasures of working with characters from previous books.
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Monday, March 12, 2012
Monday, February 01, 2010
Hamilton Spectator Review
This review by Don Graves appeared in the Hamilton Spectator last week:
The raw rhythm of the dialogue is unpredictable; rapid fired and shaping Let It Ride's characters from their outer persona to their inner fears and reflections.
It's relentless, at times almost too much so, but it pushes you from character to character, cop to hooker, drug dealer to lesbian spa -- from dream to nightmare.
There's a pot at the end of the rainbow--the Saints of Hell biker gang's gold bars. The road to get there is littered with flawed redemption, and painful, self-serving arrogance.
The pacing is hell on wheels -- sharp and bloody, with dialogue to match.
I wanted to come up for air at times, couldn't find a spot and was swept up again by the undercurrent of the writing. The ending made me smile.
Authentic and riveting.
Here's the link.
I feel like I need to keep pointing out, though, that Swap and Let It Ride are the same book.
The raw rhythm of the dialogue is unpredictable; rapid fired and shaping Let It Ride's characters from their outer persona to their inner fears and reflections.
It's relentless, at times almost too much so, but it pushes you from character to character, cop to hooker, drug dealer to lesbian spa -- from dream to nightmare.
There's a pot at the end of the rainbow--the Saints of Hell biker gang's gold bars. The road to get there is littered with flawed redemption, and painful, self-serving arrogance.
The pacing is hell on wheels -- sharp and bloody, with dialogue to match.
I wanted to come up for air at times, couldn't find a spot and was swept up again by the undercurrent of the writing. The ending made me smile.
Authentic and riveting.
Here's the link.
I feel like I need to keep pointing out, though, that Swap and Let It Ride are the same book.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Interview and Review
An interview I did a few weeks ago with my own publisher is up on their website now:
http://www.ecwpress.com/[catpath]/john_mcfetridge_interview
An interview with your own publisher has to be the very definition of softball questions, but it is kind of fun.
Also this week, Scene magazine in London, Ontario reviewd Swap. There's no link, but I'm happy to post the whole thing here:
Following on the heels of the well-received 2008 release, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Canadian author John McFetridge returns to the gritty streets of Toronto with his newest novel, Swap. When a husband and wife are murdered in their car on a busy downtown onramp, their unusual deaths spark an investigation leading police into the darkest recesses of the city’s criminal underworld. All of a sudden Toronto the Good isn’t looking so good anymore, and in McFetridge’s vision, the multicultural metropolis seems to assume a personality all its own - brooding, worldly, corrupt. Typical demonstrations of underworld power are passé here, and biker gangs consisting of well-groomed men driving European sports cars or Hummers roam streets filled with peeler bars and massage parlors. On the other side of the tracks, the cops are in disarray – having been the subject of a recent internal affairs probe - and rifts have started to fracture the force. Detectives Price and McKeon find themselves following the finest thread of a lead in the married couple’s murder case to an exclusive Toronto swinger’s club, where their investigation really starts to pick-up steam. McFetridge’s readership will recognize some of the shady characters from his earlier book here – Richard, Nugs, J.T. - but that knowledge is hardly required to appreciate the story. The magic of the writer’s electric prose lies in his sense of pacing and his ability to create plausible dialogue between characters. McFetridge doesn’t judge their actions; he lays bare their motivations, and benefi ts from all the tantalizing narrative possibilities he finds there. Come to think of it, so do we. ~ Chris Morgan.
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http://www.ecwpress.com/[catpath]/john_mcfetridge_interview
An interview with your own publisher has to be the very definition of softball questions, but it is kind of fun.
Also this week, Scene magazine in London, Ontario reviewd Swap. There's no link, but I'm happy to post the whole thing here:
Following on the heels of the well-received 2008 release, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Canadian author John McFetridge returns to the gritty streets of Toronto with his newest novel, Swap. When a husband and wife are murdered in their car on a busy downtown onramp, their unusual deaths spark an investigation leading police into the darkest recesses of the city’s criminal underworld. All of a sudden Toronto the Good isn’t looking so good anymore, and in McFetridge’s vision, the multicultural metropolis seems to assume a personality all its own - brooding, worldly, corrupt. Typical demonstrations of underworld power are passé here, and biker gangs consisting of well-groomed men driving European sports cars or Hummers roam streets filled with peeler bars and massage parlors. On the other side of the tracks, the cops are in disarray – having been the subject of a recent internal affairs probe - and rifts have started to fracture the force. Detectives Price and McKeon find themselves following the finest thread of a lead in the married couple’s murder case to an exclusive Toronto swinger’s club, where their investigation really starts to pick-up steam. McFetridge’s readership will recognize some of the shady characters from his earlier book here – Richard, Nugs, J.T. - but that knowledge is hardly required to appreciate the story. The magic of the writer’s electric prose lies in his sense of pacing and his ability to create plausible dialogue between characters. McFetridge doesn’t judge their actions; he lays bare their motivations, and benefi ts from all the tantalizing narrative possibilities he finds there. Come to think of it, so do we. ~ Chris Morgan.
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