Haruki Murakami has written some amazing novels but After Dark is definitely not one of his best. I dunno maybe I missed the point or something but this novella about a strange sleeping beauty, her insomniac sister, a guitarist and a Love Hotel is so slight, so superficial that I can only presume the author has obscured grander intentions somewhere in this simple nocturnal vista. Anyways it is as you'd expect beautifully written but you'll burn through it in hours not days.
George McDonald Fraser's The Reavers is pure romp, 200 pages of unabashed frivolous nonsense. A fast paced, bawdy tale of spies, mass criminality, plot/counter plots, lust and much buffoonery amongst the 16th Century Reivers of the Scot/Eng Border. I've only read a couple of Flashman's before but this is positively demented in comparison with an amusingly bizarre blend of historic fact with a plethora of 21st cultural references and attitudes. It's all pacy, amusing stuff that doesn't overstay it's welcome.
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