4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Courtesy of Lost for Words, August 5, 2010
This review is from: Hemingway Cutthroat: A Mystery (Thomas Dunne Books) (Hardcover)
Source: Received for review from publicist. Many thanks to Dana from Kaye Publicity for sending me this book for review. I received this book free of charge in exchange for an honest review.
My Rating: 4/5
Hemingway is in Spain covering the Spanish Civil War for the American papers back home. While there, he satiates his need for women, and booze. He certainly is nursing ideas for his next novel as well, however he finds out that a friend of his has disappeared, and is presumed dead. His interest is piqued, and he immediately sets off to get some answers.
Hemingway is a bawdy, larger than life character. He carouses with women, drinks booze as if it's water, and he manages to get into a large amount of sticky situations. He will stop at nothing to figure out what happened to Robles, even if it ends up killing him. He ends up flirting with death throughout the novel. He gets out of one situation to immediately fall into another, and somehow manages to pull through every time.
Atkinson has created an uproarious, and witty representation of Hemingway. Life in Spain during the Civil War certainly wouldn't have been easy, especially for someone searching for answers. Atkinson's vision of Spain circa 1937 is authentic, and though this novel does have its tongue-in-cheek moments, it also has a darker side. It is a quick read, though it will stick with the reader once finished.
All in all, fans of Hemingway's novels, or mystery lovers will love the thrill ride this author will take you on.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Mystery Solved By the Fictional Sleuth Alter Ego of E. Hemingway, July 31, 2010
This review is from: Hemingway Cutthroat: A Mystery (Thomas Dunne Books) (Hardcover)
This is the second of Michael Atkinson's new series of mysteries involving Earnest Hemingway's fictional Alter Ego. Unlike the first book in the "Papa playing Sherlock Holmes" mystery solving book series, which took place when Hemingway was near the end of his career, this adventure involves Hemingway covering the war in Spain in 1937 when he was a young man already famous for his novels. "Hemingway, at thirty-seven a robust and red-cheeked solider of experience and ego and lovemaking and writing hard-won sentences, decided finally that this young girl was not fair game by any standard, not even a drunkards." He was covering the Spanish Civil War along with his fellow writers John Dos Passos and Eric Blair who was writing under the name George Orwell. Eric was actually a soldier fighting in the war rather than a correspondent. Errol Flynn was also "slumming" and looking for interesting tales with which to regale his famous film industry friends.
Hemingway was already drinking heavily. He liked to take walks and visit every bar he encountered along his route, but he was able to handle the liquor much better than in the first novel when the much older writer was pickled most of the time.
As in the first novel of the series, one of Hemingway's drinking buddies Jose Robles Pazos is missing and believed killed. Although Hemingway was drunk on sangria at the moment of his friend's murder, Hemingway decides that since it's the middle of a war and the local "police here spent their time sleeping in brothels and playing cards in the cantinas. Until the war finishes up, they figure there's little that actually qualifies as police work," that if justice is going to be served, Hemingway must personally investigate his friend's killing and discover the murderer and his motive. Apparently Hemingway had such a stubborn streak that once he set his mind on revenge, it was impossible to dissuade him from following even the most dangerous trail of clues. In spite of the fact that it was the middle of a war and impossible to tell who was on whose side and life was cheap, Hemingway plowed forward beating up government bureaucrats in their decaying palatial offices, chasing "Termite" suspects into the dark, unlighted Roman Era sewers and brawling with police and assassins alike.
Hemingway felt that being a world famous American Journalist with nine published novels made him bullet proof. Most of the potential suspects would not want to bring the spotlight of the world on their nefarious world by murdering anyone as famous as Hemingway. Today that seems like a very naive theory. Being a famous writer today and $5 might buy you a cheap beer at the local dive. Literary fame won't stop the bad guys because most of them probably don't even know how to read. That was why in the earlier novel, Hemingway really only feared the mob, who didn't mind killing anyone they felt was a threat to them--anybody, including the President of the United States.
Hemingway was wealthy by the time of this story and he lived in hotels stocked with contraband goods and wine, and didn't hesitate to bribe anyone in order to get information.
As in the first book in this series, there is a lot about writing and literature in this tome. Hemingway and his literary pals often get into arguments about writing styles and what really makes good sentences and literature. At one point in the book "Hemingway wrote in longhand for an hours, discarded the first five pages because the story was better begun in the middle, without exposition..." During this book Hemingway is also worried about his latest book, To Have and Have Not, which he describes as being "spiteful" and a "mess...It's a lemon." He was worried about it ruining his reputation and much worst than that, "it might not sell."
The politics of this so-called Civil War will make the reader's heads spin. Even Hemingway couldn't figure out the politics. "Everyone knew the Russians ran the show, ever since the January 1936 elections, which swept the Front's leftist coalition to power, and particularly after Franco's coup `etat campaign ignited the war in July. Once the war began, Stalin fed and fueled the Front in opposition to Franco's alliance with Mussolini and Hitler. But he was, of course, doing more than just aiding the Spanish: he was establishing an imperialistic foothold, controlling the government decisions (the postwar issues would be ceded to the know-it-all Soviets, just as wartime power had been), covertly molding a potential satellite, one this close to France and England."
In this world of murky politics, purges were a constant in every party. Stalin was particularly brutal going after the Trotskyites. "Spain was a viper pit of cross-purposes and vendettas and power grabs, and even sussing out who was on whose side was like untangling clumped fishing line."
Rather than give away too much of the plot, the reader can be assured that there is plenty of drinking, brawling, chasing the whores occupying a full floor of most hotels, bribing, black marketing and journalists arguing about what was going on around them without really wanting to leave their comfortable and well stocked bars to travel to the actual front to see for themselves. Then as now, a lot of war reporting was done without the journalist leaving their favorite barstool. Hemingway and Dos Passos were the exception. They could hardly wait to get to the front.
Not everyone will enjoy this book. Many people simply won't like the portrait painted of Ernest Hemingway. Others won't like the fact that so much happens in a fog of alcohol. Many people won't agree with the book's theories of writing and what makes good literature or even good sentences. The Hemingway Alter-ego does grow on the reader and they will eventually all want to follow the clues and see where and to whom they lead. And will the bad guys get their just desserts? Revenge is sweet. And it's nice to see justice served even in a nasty civil war where super powers use the locals as pawns and for tests of their latest weapons in their International Chess Battles to the Death.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is a terrific historical tale, July 21, 2010
This review is from: Hemingway Cutthroat: A Mystery (Thomas Dunne Books) (Hardcover)
In 1937 in Madrid, Spain Ernest Hemingway feels like a fraud rather than the literary God that everyone seems to think he is. He feels he has achieved nothing noteworthy lately and simply lives off an underserved reputation.
His friend, writer John Dos Passos, encourages Hemingway to investigate the execution of Jose Robles. Hemingway met the late medical volunteer several years ago when both were in Italy. Recently Robles was accused of being a Marxist spy; his corpse was left near Valencia where it lied for several weeks before being found. Obsessed with finding answers, Hemingway working from the Hotel Florida begins his inquiry into who killed Robles; assisted by unwelcome socialite Mordaunt Worsleighson.
This is a terrific historical tale with a strong whodunit as its underpinning. The story line occurs almost two decades before Atkinson's previous Hemingway Deadlights as the macho hero struggles with being a drunk who writes garbage until he heeds the advice of his meek writing pal. With a nod to For Whom The Bell Tolls, Hemingway investigates the murder of Robles in his inevitable bullying Noir style though he never quite explains why he cares. Still with cameos and violence adding to the feel of being in Spain during the bloody civil war, Hemingway struggles between the legend and the man.
Harriet Klausner
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