Fave Raves

Although Slate’s critics seem to have little interest in crime fiction this year, the writers weighing in today at Salon on their favorite reads of 2006 have more than a few nice things to say about works from this genre.

Stephen Amidon, author of Human Capital, writes: “Although I’m not entirely convinced that George Pelecanos’ moody thriller ‘The Night Gardener’ was the best book I read all year, he certainly is by far the best author I discovered in 2006. A lot of writers talk the talk about transcending genre fiction--Pelecanos walks the walk.” And Jonathan Ames, who wrote I Love You More Than You Know, applauds Philip Kerr’s One from the Other, “his spectacular follow-up to his extraordinarily brilliant ‘Berlin Noir’ trilogy. Kerr is the only bona fide heir to Raymond Chandler that I have ever come across; his German private detective Bernie Gunther would have been respected by Philip Marlowe and the two of them would have enjoyed sitting down at a bar and talking.”

While Erica Jong (Fear of Flying, Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life) can’t seem to muster enough nice things to say about John le Carré’s The Mission Song. As she observes:

Reviewers tend to think of le Carré as a Cold War novelist--because of the immense success of his novels of that era. But in truth, le Carré has grown and matured and now takes chances no other novelist takes.

In “The Mission Song,” he invents an Anglo-African of mixed race (and many languages) who is an interpreter. Through his metier, le Carré’s hero gets mixed up in the Machiavellian African politics of the Congo, leaves his wife, finds the woman of his life, pays dearly for his attempt to save the country of his youth from double-dealing warlords, and comes to represent the African-European of the 21st century.

Most white novelists would not dare to get inside the head of a black man. Le Carré not only dares, but succeeds with humor, empathy and a political canniness that goes far beyond stereotypes. He addresses the Christianization of tribal Africa, the colonialist hangover, the idealism of young Africans, the hypocrisy of the British press and the British upper classes, what it means today to ‘pass’-- both in Britain and in Africa--and why the survivors are almost always the biggest dissemblers and hypocrites.

Read Salon’s entire selection of moving literary experiences here.