Crime noir, down under

Kickback (Wyatt, #1)
by Garry Disher

“… thriller first published in 1991, featuring Wyatt, a stylish bank robber whose inscrutable methods ensure he never gets caught – until he meets Anna Reid.
This is the perfect introduction to an exquisite series: hard-boiled Melbourne in the time of video rentals and answering machines, paper money, Datsuns and Customlines. It’s as sinewy and efficient as Wyatt himself, superbly crafted and relentlessly tense.“

Australian crime-noir. Sparse prose, good plot with a nice and steady build-up of tension. I could have done without the casual and unsubtle racism. Unexpected twist at the end that I did not see coming. Well done! 

I did run out of steam towards the end though. Not sure if it was me or if it just took too long for the final part to come to a conclusion. Decent read, if you are in the mood for this type of crime noir. I decided to remove book #2 of this series from my TBR pile though.

Read in the German translation.

Not a rock star…

Gravitation, Volume 01 
by Maki Murakami

Added this to my shelf in 2016, wanting to explore Manga. Never felt tempted to actually read it whenever I picked it up. I finally made a serious attempt and read the first part of four. DNF after 57 pages and 28%. Too much highschool teenage angst. Aimed at Older Teens Age 16+ apparently is not my thing.

Feminist poetry

I am still working my way through a list of poems in my inbox. This was the one I connected with the most, when I read it tonight:

You’d Have Me Be White

Verse translation from the Spanish, “You’d Have Me Be White” by Alfonsina Storni, Better Than Starbucks Vol. VI No. III, Aug. 2021, https://betterthanstarbucks.wixsite.com/aug2021/poetry-translations 

This poem shows nicely that feminism is not something new. The poet, Alfonsina Storni, died in 1938.