Tuesday 16 November 2010

Ass-Kicking Review: Black Hand Gang

Hello everyone!

Okay, as much as possible I try to lump reviews together into reviewspam posts, this one deserves its own special post.

Author Keith Harvey in Dallas, on his blog Red Rook Review, has written a thoughtful, glowing review of Pat Kelleher's No Man's Word: Black Hand Gang, in quite detailed lit-crit terminology. It was a delight to read.


To pick up on a couple of quotes:

As I read I determined quickly that the prose is tight and well-honed, and that this guy Kelleher, who I have never heard of, has the chops. I surmise this isn't his first time out.

First, it is well-crafted, as I said; Kelleher structures each chapter to create suspense and take us onto the next, and the research spot-on. I believed the early chapters in no man's land implicitly, just as I did later when the
situs morphs onto a new world and the heroes find themselves in a hostile environment. This bump, this movement from the known world of France during World War I to the secondary world, makes the novel ultimately a portal novel in the grand tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Norman, David Lindsay, and even C. S. Lewis.


Good stuff, eh?

Cheers,

David

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