The Spring issue of Eclectica Magazine is up and I have several adult titles reviewed. For mystery lovers, I point you in the direction of my piece on international mysteries. I included reviews of two Soho Crime titles: Kittyhawk Down by Garry Disher (Australia) and The Innocent by Magdalen Nabb (Italy). Also one title from Serpent's Tail: Bood on the Saddle by Rafael Reig (Spain); one from Bitter Lemon: Fever by Fredrich Glauser (Switzerland) and one anthology from Akashic Books: London Noir, edited by Cathi Unsworth.
I guarantee you each of these books is very unique and quite different from US mysteries - not better or worse, but certainly with a diferent reading sensibility. I enjoyed them all.
For SF fans I suggest Blood on the Saddle, a detective story which is primarily about a character who has gone missing from a famous western writer's (ala Louis L'Amour) latest manuscript. In Reig's world literary characters can be tempted out of their stories all the time and it is up to PI Carlos Clot to find them. There's also a more conventional storyline involve a missing "real" person, but everything converges quite nicely and I have to say there is nothing out there - nothing - like this book.
I also reviewed Patrica Hampl's very elegantly written Blue Arabesque elsewhere in the issue. For art lovers, particularly of Matisse, this is one to seek out.
