The Sand Men
The Sand Men – Christopher Fowler
Motoring around a bookstore, the other afternoon, I bemoaned my loss of archaic discovery for new books. However, I did stumble onto a new that looked to be fun.
The method of discovery, after writing about roots in Austin, rummaging the various locations, I was amiably and idly wandering, meandering the stacks at the big box bookstore — with Pumpkin Spice Latte prevalent, I was thinking about rereading Dune, and a similar title with evocative cover art caught my attention — The Sand Men by Christopher Fowler.
“One Spice to rule them all!” (Pumpkin Spice Latte?)
Cursory digging makes that author out as an Aries. A number of his sophomore texts really grabbed me, with an ancillary character being London itself. Part of the process of discovery, poking through bookstores in old London-town.
The opening premise alone hooked me, about ex-pats working in the Arabian Peninsula, two-year shifts that make bank.
If I were much younger, and thusly unencumbered, I think a two-year stint in Arabia, or Japan, or wherever, I figure that would be wondrous experience. Plus make bank. Now-a-days, with the net and all? Even easier.
I remember what grabbed me the first time I read one of his books, it was the uncanny, unnatural, horrific death scene as an opener. Nothing like a mangled, grizzly death to get me roped into the story and its plot lines.
There’s also an overweening British Accent present in these books. Love that.
Part way through, there’s one of those killer observations of human nature, and as a writer, I have to admire the seamless insertion of blantant truth, possibly uncomfortable observations about human nature, just effortlessly woven into the narrative.
Nothing to do with anything.
The Sand Men – Christopher Fowler
Purposefully, I didn’t buy the digital copy because it was, I discovered in a bookstore, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. If one doesn’t purchase books, then bookstores will cease to exist. This is one of the stories, about a hundred pages in, it gripped me, and I didn’t want to put it down. The kind of book I stay up late, reading, and looking haggard the next morning.
The Sand Men – Christopher Fowler
The Sand Men
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