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Michael Carlson

Three shades of noir

Michael Carlson 4 August 2012 6:00 am

In the days of cheap paperbacks, publishers sometimes printed two pulp novels in one volume, back to back. Ariel Winter…

The Hillicker Curse

Michael Carlson 18 September 2010 12:00 am

Michael Carlson's Bookends

Engrossing obsessions

Michael Carlson 4 November 2009 12:00 am

With Blood’s a Rover James Ellroy finally finishes his ‘Underworld USA’ trilogy.

Lost in the fog

Michael Carlson 29 July 2009 12:00 am

Inherent Vice, by Thomas Pynchon

This is America

Michael Carlson 29 October 2008 12:00 am

Homicide, by David Simon; Death Dyed Blonde, by Stanley Reynolds

Murder in the South

Michael Carlson 28 March 2007 2:52 pm

When David Rose visited Columbus, Georgia, to write a story about capital punishment in the United States, it drew him…

Grace under pressure

Michael Carlson 27 December 2006 4:58 pm

In Alan Furst’s nine novels, it always seems to be twilight. The second world war is being fought off-stage, or, as…

How many deaths?

Michael Carlson 26 October 2006 10:53 am

‘Suspicion is a shifting shade,’ Mark tells the police lieutenant who’s questioning him, and no one appreciates the tensions of…

Reheating the Cold War

Michael Carlson 18 September 2004 12:00 am

In the days when the Cold War provided depth and context to all spy fiction, Charles McCarry was the strongest…

A second, darker diagnosis

Michael Carlson 15 May 2004 12:00 am

In 1976 Godfrey Hodgson published In Our Time, a portrait of America in the years from ‘World War II to…

Down to the last detail

Michael Carlson 1 March 2003 12:00 am

One might assume that the Oxford novel, like some long-delayed train finally pulling into Paddington, has run its course. Bright…

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