Crace’s award-winning debut “novel” is a collection of linked short stories (they take place on the same unnamed, fictional continent). It didn’t work as well as his later novels—notably Being Dead, The Devil’s Larder, and Genesis—but his sentences are so beautiful, his word choices so luxurious, that it still pleased. Book: 30 out of 52

It may be impossible to account for everything that describes this compelling, heartbreaking, mysterious novel in just 52 words. It’s a legal thriller, a cult thriller, very light science fiction, a bit neo-detective, and a multi-generational family saga. It’s a page turner and a meditation that features some of Winter’s best writing.  Book: 29 out… View Article

Having adapted murder ballads to comics myself, I may be a bit picky, but: This is not a good quartet of adaptations. It’s all surface—the plot, the setting. The stories don’t seem to understand anything of the subterranean mystery and power of murder ballads, nor is anything about them evoking music. Book: 28 out of… View Article