Now's the Time: The Complete Resnick Short Stories [Import] [Mass Market Paperback]

John Harvey (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

John Harvey and his Nottingham policeman, Charlie Resnick, have been a much-admired duo in the world of mystery for the past decade. Recently, however, those same fans have been in mourning, as Harvey announced his decision to end the series with the 10th title, Last Rites. Unlike Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who contrived the demise of his popular Sherlock Holmes at the Reichenbach Falls, only to be forced by a clamoring public to resurrect him, Harvey appears to have made up his mind to stick to his guns because he no longer lives in Nottingham and doesn't feel that he can use the city in the same intimate way he always had. However, a small British press is creating excitement and gratifying those of us who love the Resnick character with the first book publication of the 11 stories featuring jazz-loving Resnick in one volume. (The tales have appeared in such venues as Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and a variety of mystery anthologies.)

The Times of London once described John Harvey as the contemporary "King of Crime." He has also been vociferously admired by such peers as Elmore Leonard, Andrew Vachss, Sue Grafton, Philip Kerr, and Jim Harrison. The stories offer Resnick in the way they, and all his loyal readers, want to remember him: cooking up gourmet omelets and sandwiches, keeping his four cats well fed, and applying his scrupulous intelligence and sensitivity to the problems of Midlands criminal activity. Charlie Resnick's cats are named for his favorite jazz musicians--Pepper, Dizzy, Miles, and Bud--and this short story collection features, at the end, a "partial soundtrack" for armchair detection and accompaniment. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

For crime-fiction fans still grieving over Harvey's decision to end his masterful Charlie Resnick series, a reprieve arrives with this collection of the complete Resnick short stories. The 12 stories--all with titles borrowed from tunes recorded by jazz great Charlie Parker--feature not only Resnick and his fellow Nottingham coppers but also many of the supporting characters from the novels. Ray-o Cook, for example, the slightly bent junk-shop operator who appears in both Off Minor (1992) and the series' finale, Last Rites , turns up in four of these stories and again demonstrates Harvey's genius for portraying the British underclass with uncompromising honesty, hard-won empathy, and not a whit of sentimentality. Too often short crime fiction falls prey to the demands of plot--too much mystery, not enough character--but Harvey avoids this snare by focusing, as he does in the novels, on the psyches of his people rather than on who did what. He says in his introduction to the collection that he used the stories (much as Raymond Chandler did his short fiction) as "footnotes to the longer work, testing grounds on which to walk the characters." For the reader, though, these testing grounds are much more than dress rehearsals; although some stories require knowledge of the novels for maximum enjoyment, others function like early episodes of Hill Street Blues: vivid slices of cop life into which we are immersed suddenly, often in medias res, and from which we emerge with a powerful sense of the suffocating sadness of life on the periphery of society. A perfect coda to the most accomplished crime series of the 1990s. Bill Ott --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Arrow (October 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 009943556X
• ISBN-13: 978-0099435563
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #403,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Series Epilogue (or Introduction for newcomers), April 3, 2001

By	A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Now's the Time: The Complete Resnick Short Stories (Slow Dancer Crime) (Paperback)

Following the end of Harvey's Nottingham-set Charlie Resnick series, this book collects his eleven (not twelve, as some reviews erroneously state) Charlie Resnick short stories, nine of which previously appeared in anothologies such as "Fresh Blood," "London Noir," "Blue Lightning," "Mean Time," and "No Alibi." Unlike most crime short stories, the stories (each named after a Charlie Parker work) don't worry about setting up a conundrum or puzzle, but rather focus on characters. While it's not strictly necessary to have read the entire Resnick series to enjoy these stories, you'll certainly be missing a lot of established background on a lot of the characters and a fair amount of the texture and flavor of the setting.

Jazz musician Ed Silver, from the book Cutting Edge, reappears in the story "Now's the Time." Jerry Grabianski, an art thief who first appears in the book Rough Treatment, shows up here in "Bird of Paradise," before reappearing later in the book Still Water. The Snape family appear for the first time in "Dexterity," before their feature in Easy Meat, and later walk-on in Last Rites. However, the most reoccurring group is teenager Ray-o Cooke, his criminal uncle Terry, and various and sundry associates, who are introduced in the book Off Minor, span four stories here, and then return in Last Rites. Indeed, the stories serve as bridges between, and footnotes to, the various Resnick series. Basically, if you're a fan of the series, you'll like the stories. And if you haven't read the series, the stories are a good introduction to Harvey's style.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!, June 18, 2000

By	K. Lowry "Mom of 4" (Bowling Green, KY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Now's the Time: The Complete Resnick Short Stories (Slow Dancer Crime) (Paperback)

Any fan of Charlie Resnick, and those who are new to John Harvey's series, will love this book. I don't typically like short stories, but Harvey does a great job developing a good crime story and the usual wonderful characters despite the limitations of the genre.