Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘Tom Nolan’

Beginnings

On Sundays, we’ve been doing beginnings, taking a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel, including those written under the Spencer Quinn moniker™. How about Oblivion, my first actual private eye novel (all the Chet and Bernies are P.I. novels, but rather different from Oblivion – although I bet you can find similarities, too).

[“Exciting and out of the ordinary… full of funny, touching and alarming surprises… His funny and stout-hearted dogs (like Buster, who becomes Petrov’s assistant for a few hours) are unmatched by anyone’s, including Dashiel Hammett’s and Robert B. Parker’s… Peter Abrahams is a wonderful writer.”
– L.A. Times (Tom Nolan)]

Nick Petrov, in the witness box, waited for the next question. The lawyer for the accused looked up from his yellow pad and fastened his skeptical gaze – familiar to millions of cable talk show viewers – on Petrov’s face. The lawyer had eyebrows like Einstein’s, resembled him in general, Petrov thought, but with a better haircut. Perfume from the previous witness still hung in the air.

“Been quite the career,” said the lawyer, “hasn’t it, Mr. Petrov? So far.”

 

 

Beginnings (More)

On Sundays, we’ve been doing beginnings – all the Chet and Bernies (as part of Chetspeak) – and now taking on all the Peter Abrahams novels in chronological order. Here, from 2003, #14, OBLIVION. My first actual private eye novel (all the Chet and Bernies are P.I. novels, but rather different from OBLIVION – although I bet you can find similarities, too).

“Exciting and out of the ordinary… full of funny, touching and alarming surprises… His funny and stout-hearted dogs (like Buster, who becomes Petrov’s assistant for a few hours) are unmatched by anyone’s, including Dashiel Hammett’s and Robert B. Parker’s… Peter Abrahams is a wonderful writer.”
– L.A. Times (Tom Nolan)

Nick Petrov, in the witness box, waited for the next question. The lawyer for the accused looked up from his yellow pad and fastened his skeptical gaze – familiar to millions of cable talk show viewers – on Petrov’s face. The lawyer had eyebrows like Einstein’s, resembled him in general, Petrov thought, but with a better haircut. Perfume from the previous witness still hung in the air.

“Been quite the career,” said the lawyer, “hasn’t it, Mr. Petrov? So far.”

 

 

Beginnings (More)

On Sunday we’ve been doing beginnings – all the Chet and Bernies (as part of Chetspeak) – and now taking on all the Peter Abrahams novels in chronological order. Here, from 2000, #10 – the beginning of CRYING WOLF:

One should not avoid one’s tests, although they are perhaps the most dangerous game one could play and are in the end tests which are taken before ourselves and before no other judge. (Beyond Good and Evil, Section 41)

– Introduction to the syllabus, Philosophy 322 (Superman and Man: Nietzsche and Cobain), Prof. Uzig.

(Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal: “Peter Abrahams, in his terrific 10th novel, “Crying Wolf,” tells a riveting story of a time as menacing as any: the present. Inverness, though, the small New England school where an out-of-state scholarship freshman named Nat tries to make his mark, seems idyllic: a frequent location site for filmmakers in need of an ideal college campus. The idyll grows stranger when Nat is befriended by Izzie and Grace, beautiful twins in whose wealthy milieu Nat is a fish out of water. The twins hatch a scheme to solve Nat’s money problems, an ill-conceived caper that turns ugly when it converges with the deluded plans of a drug-addled campus thief. “Crying Wolf” unfolds brilliantly, in sequences made all the more compelling by nuance and precise detail. Mr. Abrahams captures all sorts of voices in all kinds of rooms: the razor-edged banter at the twins’ family dinner table, the heady talk in the philosophy class of a Nietzsche-obsessed professor, the egoistic mental ramblings of a thief who recites infomercial babble like spiritual truth. A book as smart and gripping as “Crying Wolf” makes any year memorable.”)