Hemingway Cutthroat

May 3, 2010
Set in civil war–torn Spain in 1937, Atkinson’s solid sequel to 2009’s Hemingway Deadlights finds the celebrated author feeling like “a fraud, a three-dollar bill, a charlatan everyone treated like a messiah.” With the occasional help of fellow writer John Dos Passos, Hemingway looks into the execution of José Robles, a medical volunteer and accused Marxist spy, with whom he was acquainted years earlier in Italy, after Robles’s body lies in the hills outside Valencia for more than three weeks before it’s discovered. Hemingway’s base in Madrid, the hectic Hotel Florida, sees the likes of Errol Flynn, Eric Blair (aka George Orwell), various prostitutes, and annoying socialite Mordaunt Worsleighson, who becomes Hemingway’s unwelcome assistant through much of his determined search for Robles’s killers. Plenty of sex and violence help move the action along, but the underlying reasons for Hemingway’s obsessive quest never become fully clear.

May 1, 2010
Set in civil war-torn 1936 Spain, Atkinson's second series mystery has the here 37-year-old Hemingway investigating a friend's murder. Unlike "Hemingway Deadlights", this is much more of a hard-core espionage story, while also retaining the first book's humor (the opening scene is priceless). Taking up residence with a horde of squirreled-away food and booze in Madrid's Hotel Florida to write dispatches to the states, Hemingway learns of the death of Jos Robles. War is war and people die, but when it is leaked that the killing was something more nefarious, Ernesto, aided by John dos Passos, decides to unearth the truth. Of course, the killer doesn't want them snooping, and Dos and a young translator aiding the investigation are scared off, but Ernesto is too bullheadedor stupidto quit. VERDICT Atkinson again does a superb job capturing the younger Hemingway's personahe's rich, famous, lusty (threesomes with hotel whores), drunk (only half the time), smart, determined, and not taking any crap! Although Hemingway lived one of the 20th century's most remarkable and adventurous lives, Atkinson's version is even better! Another series winner.Michael Rogers, "Library Journal"

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2010
Atkinsons first novel starring Papa Hemingway as a sleuth (Hemingway Deadlights, 2009) was set in 1956 and found the world-famous author on the verge of serious decline. This time the clock moves back to Hemingways salad days, 1937 and the Spanish civil war. But what gives this series its spunk is the way Atkinson plays against the he-man Papa stereotype, showing us Hemingway the blowhard, Hemingway the sloppy drunk, and even Hemingway the hypocrite. And, yet, there is also Hemingway the craftsman (groping after the story that would eventually become For Whom the Bell Tolls) and Hemingway the stand-up guy, refusing to look the other way when a story slaps him upside the head. This time that story concerns the murder of one of the Spanish Republics leading officials. Hemingway, with the timid assistance of idealistic but ineffectual John Dos Passos, lumbers after the scoop, ruffling numerous feathers along the way and winding up in Guernica at exactly the wrong time. Good fun for classic hard-boiled fans and, of course, for Hemingway aficionados, who will enjoy both Papas boisterous charisma and the cameos from Martha Gellhorn and Josephine Herbst, among others.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)