Best "Suspense" writers

[QK13]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

Nanook! I want to know how you can read Stephen King and Dean Koontz and live way out in the woods all by yourself!!

I read them both and get creeped out on Cape Cod!! [img]/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]
I can't even THINK about going to MAINE!!! [img]/forums/images/graemlins/eek.gif[/img]

[Nunya]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

I am thinking I need to put a post up so announcing say mi no live eena woods anymore...???!!! Cause everybady seems to be taking way too much pleasure asking mi how much snow mi get aready... [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

I actually started writing a story for the board, supm to keep me occupied over the holidays... so there... [img]/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[QK13]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

A no yuh mi chat tuh bou woods Nunya! [img]/forums/images/graemlins/70388-shameonyou.gif[/img]
Yus see mi seh Nanook? (aka IM) She mek di comment bout S.King & D.Koontz
A she wan whe live out deh inna di cole cole woods wid all snow uppa dem yeye-balls. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

Di comment bout di mystery writah fi yuh. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[mountaingal]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

Update please, Nunya. What did you get, and how are you enjoying it?

[Nunya]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

I forgot my list but remembered Brookmyre... I went looking and saw some book with that Irish actor on the cover... I wasn't pulled in...

I got a Ludlum which I am almost through reading, so this weekend I am taking my list and hitting Chapters again.

If yuh have any more fi add to de list, please do! [img]/forums/images/graemlins/70371-jump.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/70371-jump.gif[/img]

[SandiF]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

I started reading another Greg Iles chilling suspense book called "24 Hour". The story is *real* good. That author has never failed me with his books.

[mountaingal]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

[ QUOTE ]
I forgot my list but remembered Brookmyre... I went looking and saw some book with that Irish actor on the cover... I wasn't pulled in...


[/ QUOTE ]

which irish actor? on the cover of a brookmyre? usually im no have no ppl pan im cover, and mi nain know dem dramatize any a im book...[img]/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

mi go look into dis.

[mountaingal]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

see some brookmyre's books here

http://www.brookmyre.co.uk/books.htm

[mountaingal]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

actually, if you click on the cover of each book in the link above, you'll see that the author includes reviews from the newspapers, good and bad. or in his categories, "good"; "awrite", "[censored]". some of those reviews are pretty harsh but funny as hell...

[Nunya]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

He's got a novel that's been made into a television series starring that Irish actor (whose name escapes me) who graces the cover of said book.

Cyaa memba de name doah... did a search and couldn't find it either...

[mountaingal]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

found it. Quite Ugly One Morning was the name of the book, made into a television special starring Irish actor James Nesbitt. Below is a review of the show.


James Nesbitt

I’ve never been one hundred percent certain about Christopher Brookmyre. I admire his sense of humour, his ability to create absurdly violent and often offensive set pieces. I have often wondered, however, if his plotting is perhaps a little pedestrian, if beneath the showy exterior of his work lies a more humdrum, Tesco best-seller style thriller.

Quite Ugly One Morning aired on the Tesco of TV channels, ITV on Monday. It starred James Nesbitt – the standard for cheeky-chappy thriller heroes these days – and it was… nothing special. It was, quite frankly, a disappointment. Like a Tesco-value version of Brookmyre, it took everything you enjoyed in the full-fat version and dumped it in the bin leaving only the bits you never really cared for.

The disappointment came from the fact that everything that makes Brookmyre Brookmyre was edited from this bog-standard TV drama. Things started off badly when they wimped out on the opening sequence – the discovery of a mutilated body and the subsequent realisation that the deadly stench surrounding the crime scene came from a carefully placed [censored] on the fireplace. While the book opens with a brilliant scene where the police search the apartment, the adaptation has Nesbitt as investigative reporter Jack Parlabane wake with what seems a pretty mild hangover (TV hangovers are just never as deadly as they are in real life) and walk in to find the jobby before being arrested by the police who just happen to show up, realising something’s wrong in a way that seems to verge on their being psychic. The result should be funny and disturbing. As it is, the scene is merely funny and that’s only because the word “jobby” is used frequently and it is an admittedly funny word. That is, its funny until it becomes stale and overused which it is within ten minutes.

From here on in the story is told in a pedestrian manner. Nesbitt works on auto-cheeky-pilot, nodding and winking at the pretty policewoman and antagonising the police by being an arse. While I have always had problems with the Parlabane character (He’s a smartarse, too perfect, a wee boy’s idea of a hero) Nesbitt’s pale imitation was even worse. He threw off smartarse lines with his eyes half closed, tried to act charming but only ended up being mildly sleazy. Parlabane’s almost unnatural athletic abilities were never shown, limited to Nesbitt hauling himself over a tiny wall to indicate he’d just scaled a building without being detected.

The bad guy’s were even worse. Our sleazy, greedy developer trying to get rid of the geriatric wing of the hospital (Don’t ask, its all involved and a little improbable) had a beard and occasionally tried to outsleaze Parlabane. But ultimately he presented no danger to anyone. Committing the greatest sin of any TV villain, he was dull and utterly non-threatening. His henchman was more consistent at hitting the Brookmyre marks; stupid, moronic and violent, he got the best scenes of the night, trying to resuscitate a dog he killed with a bed, burying said dog in the back garden, poking himself in the toe with a gardening fork, getting his fingers bit off. The poor fella did his best, but the violence was toned down, made respectable for the consevative ITV audience. But at least the spirit of Brookmyre was almost present.

To be honest I barely remember the original book – it was certainly the least of Brookmyre’s, a throwaway – but my memory tells me, as do friends, that the plot was horrifically butchered. Whether it was or wasn’t (and ITV admit they made some changes because they felt that since Harold Shipman, killing old folks wasn’t acceptable in crime thriller) the plot they did have was barely existent. Not only that but they changed the sexuality of one of the lead characters merely so she could make google-eyes at Nesbitt (who, let’s face it, is a rather strange looking fellow anyway).

The show was toned down, made acceptable and run of the mill. Part of the anarchic fun of a Brookmyre novel could have been translated by a director and scriptwriter willing to take a few chances, but this was not an exercise in taking chances. I suppose that was inevitable after they announced James Nesbitt as the man taking on Parlabane. Nesbitt is hardly an edgy or ambitious choice. His cheeky chappy act is safe and comforting. Parlabane should be neither. He should be a pain in the arse, but he should be an anarchic pain in the arse.

I doubt this conservative production will do Brookmyre any favours. It exposes that underneath his flash, his stories are standard thrillers and worse than that it fails to showcase for a potential new audience the extreme humour and occasional insights that Brookmyre uses to make up for this. This is a shame, because ITV certainly did Val McDermid proud with their adaptation of Wire in The Blood (and showed that Robson (Or is it Jerome?) from Robson and Jerome might actually be able to act), but perhaps they were on safer ground there. Perhaps Brookmyre’s anarchic sense of humour is something we aren’t ready to translate to the small screen yet.
source

[mountaingal]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

if you don't want to dip into Brookmyre right now, you may want to try Carl Hiassen, if you haven't yet done so.

Hiaasen is an American writer (from Florida) and his suspense thrillers are known for two things: wicked and grotesque humour, and an environmental undercurrent - his stories are about ruthless developers despoiling Florida's natural resources, then getting their comeuppance.

He's got a couple of regular characters, including a steely state trooper who's a black guy. My favorite Hiaasens are Double Whammy, Native Tongue and Skin Tight.

[Nunya]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

Whoa - what a way dem kill dat deh show deh, yikes! James Nesbitt isn't that bad (I used to watch him in some other series, cyaa memba de name a dat eeda) and I quite enjoyed him.

But then again, I don't know the character he's supposed to be playing here, so...

So let's see then, this is my list thus far:

Allan Folsom
Greg Iles
Carl Hiassen

short list.... but I'm still pretty excited. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/70371-jump.gif[/img]

[mountaingal]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

sorry you not attracted to Brookmyre. I'm sure you'd love his work. Try One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night, it's the book the author recommends to those reading his work for the first time, and it's a good one (both my 15-year-old and I have read and liked it).




ONE FINE DAY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

The occasion: high school reunion.
The place: an oil rig converted into a tourist resort.
The outcome: carnage.

Gavin is creating a unique 'holiday experience', every facility any tourist who hates abroad will ever want, will all be available on a converted North Sea oil rig. To test the facilities he's hosting a reunion for his old school (none of his ex-classmates can remember him, but what the heck, it's free). He is so busy showing off that he doesn't notice that another group have invited themselves along -- a collection of terrorist mercenaries who are occasionally of more danger to themselves than to the public. And they in turn are unaware that Inspector MacGregor has got wind of their activities. Within twenty-four hours Gavin's dream has blown to the four winds, along with a lot of other things. Fast, rabidly funny, and seriously over the top.

Dress Casual. Bring your own bullets.

"Dark, violent and very funny" Daily Telegraph
source

[Nunya]

Re: Best "Suspense" writers

I guess I should add him to the list, considering that his was the only name I remembered... [img]/forums/images/graemlins/70402-thinking.gif[/img]