Cold Steel Corny title! Says Critical Mick.mp3 (4.12 MB)
Paul Carson
Arrow Books, 1999http://www.paulcarson.net
Eleven Lies about Cold Steel
1. The Cold Steel of the novel's title refers to a new (insanely lucrative) Irish technique of fusing iron ore at room temperature.
Not true! The revolutionary treatment in Paul Carson's novel is actually a wonderdrug.
2. Paul Carson, author of Cold Steel, is world-famous American heart surgeon who relocated to lead the new Heart Foundation of Dublin's Mercy Hospital.
That's one of the main characters of Cold Steel, actually. Carson is an allergist.
3. Dublin's Mercy Hospital launched a strenuous protest against its less-than-savory portrayal in this novel.
There is no such place as Mercy Hospital in Dublin. There's no such newspaper as the one mentioned, either. Why make hooey up when there are authentic places and papers which could lend local flavor and authority? I don't know.
4. All of the characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cold Steel's chief investigator, Detective Superintendent Jim Clarke, seems heavily inspired by real-life forensic detective Jim Donovan. Both suffered horrific leg injuries when baddies blew up their cars, for instance. Maybe Critical Mick is as wrong about this conjecture as he was on John Connolly's Every Dead Thing, but the similarity in characters brought (The Big O) Originality into question.
5. Cold Steel has as bad a baddie as Hanibal Lecter.
It's a decent read. It's no Hannibal Lechter, though. And why do book jackets always compare villains to Hannibal Lechter?
6. The novel opens with the discovery of polygamous circus dwarf Arctic Jack's hideously dismembered body.
Wrong again! It's a beautiful young woman.
7. You'll never spot the grusome twist that brings Cold Steel to its chilling end.
Maybe if you've never read Bartholomew Gill you won't. Or countless other books wrtten since August 9, 1974.
8. Cold Steel was banned upon its initial release. When finally allowed by the Irish censoring board, it became a massive hit. The song upon which it closes was played in nightclubs and became a number one sensation.
Whoops! That was The Life of Brian. Cold Steel was a bestseller straight off.
9. Slicing boldly across the darker side of the supernatural, the restless spectre of DS Jim Clarke's mentor returns in the form of a cheese sandwhich to help solve the baffling crime.
(Don't even know where to start with that one....) There's nothing supernatural in Cold Steel at all. Rest easy, cheese ghost.
10. Cold Steel was written entirely underwater.
That's just silly.
11. After the reconstructive surgery, Critical Mick vowed never to read another Paul Carson.
Carson's alright. Certainly better airplane reading than the likes of Dan Brown. It's enjoyable to see familiar places and institutions when reading a mystery novel. I like action playing out against a Dublin backdrop, rather than a New York or Los Angeles locale that I only know from movies. Cold Steel earned three solid stars off of me, and that's the truth.
Critical Mick would, just once, like to see a novel where the politician turns out NOT to be bent. That would be a hell of a twist. Nothing against Paul Carson's Cold Steel, mind you.
|
Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2005 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.
Irate, huh? Managed to piss off another one? Direct your hatemail to mick @ mickhalpin dot com.
|
No