The Orange Curtain [Import] [Paperback]

John Shannon (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Orion (2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 075284699X
• ISBN-13: 978-0752846996
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,107,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Waaaaay Better Than Your Average Mystery, April 22, 2001

By 

Llonald L. King "LLon King" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Orange Curtain: A Jack Liffey Mystery (Hardcover)

I'm not normally much of a mystery reader. I guess I'm a bit of a prose snob. I confess. For my taste, mysteries tend to be a bit insipid. Characters are too often one-dimentional: overly described and under-developed. Plots may be clever but are so totally predictable. Atmosphere is too often written in little florid slashes, in a kind of straight-jacketed prose brought in specially just to set the scene.

Not so with John Shannon's Jack Liffy series. Wow. These books rock. This man can write. His sentences are beautiful and thought-provoking, yet he can slash through a scene, leaving you breathless and needing more, as well as anyone I've read. And Shannon gives the reader real characters and a true sense of place, not just walking cartoons and specially engineered atmospherics.

This new book, The Orange Curtain, may be the best yet in the Jack Liffy series, but all of Shannon's Jack Liffy mysteries have been well done. The first book, Concrete River really captured for me a section of the slimy underbelly of Los Angeles. No mystery writer since Chander has sliced LA open and spilled out its guts as compellingly as Shannon has. LA is a huge place. There are lots of corners to explore. This new book, The Orange Curtain, takes in, among other things, Orange County and its huge Vietnamese population. It's a great book, whether you want to disappear into it on the coast-to-coast airliner or want to take it in over several days and savor its wonderful prose and interesting characters. It's a great book, and this is a series that just keeps getting better.

There is plenty of punch in this book for you mystery addicts, plenty of hard-boiled sentiment and riveting, page-turning action. But between the lines--in the lines--there is also some superb writing.

I can't wait for the next one.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!, June 30, 2001

By 

Charlotte Vale-Allen (CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Orange Curtain: A Jack Liffey Mystery (Hardcover)

The Orange Curtain was my introduction to John Shannon. I am now going to read the previous titles. Here is a writer with remarkable skills, both in narrative and in characterization. As well, his hero Jack Liffey is a man of such thoughtful intelligence that he stands well above the usual macho-jock types who play leading roles in so many series. The creation of Billy Gudger is something rare: a fully rounded view of loneliness personified and of how cruelty and isolation can shape a killer. Unlike the two-dimensional bad guys with incoherent rationales who kill people from some warped sense of personal satisfaction, Shannon has, in Gudger, drawn a portrait of a sad, even forgivable, young man with no social skills, and a deep and terrible thirst for knowledge and for friendship. It is to the author's credit that the exchanges between Liffey and Gudger are sadly revealing of the souls of both men; and the final section of the book is a fine example of how tension can be tightened, then tightened some more, then more, before something finally snaps.

Here is an author to watch; he is an extraordinary writer, with insight, wisdom, and great feeling for his characters.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I've discovered Jack Liffey!, May 14, 2002

By 

"mystery395" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Orange Curtain: A Jack Liffey Mystery (Hardcover)

This is the first of John Shannon's Jack Liffey mysteries I've read, though I see it's the fourth book in the series. It gave me a fascinating glimpse into the Vietnamese community of Orange County, LA, as well as introducing me to a central character I immediately want to more about. Jack Liffey is no super-hero, but a decent sort of guy trying to do his best in a crazy world (and some aspects of Liffey's LA are definitely crazy!). John Shannon is a great writer who keeps the reader interested throughout, and I can't understand why he isn't much better known. 'The Orange Curtain' is highly recommended.