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Le Codex de Syracuse
A floozy's murder jump-starts a caper mixing scholarly skullduggery and hard-boiled mayhem in Nisbet's byzantine biblio-mystery. San Francisco frame maker Danny Kestrel has just driven away from a one-night stand with nymphomaniac art patron Renee Knowles when she's bumped off with a single gunshot, leaving him the main suspect in her killing. Danny investigates Renee's dealings in the underground antique trade and immediately runs afoul of crooks convinced that she passed him a secret treasure she finagled in her final days. Gyrating events eventually lead Danny to an antiquarian text that reveals evidence damning a sixth-century Roman empress for intrigues involving her son and some priceless trinkets, all of which seem to have bearing on Renee's sordid activities. The convoluted plot makes for a roller-coaster ride of a thriller, but it calls for more talk than action. Fortunately, Nisbet (Price of the Ticket) knows that translating esoteric arcana through the speech of colorfully eccentric characters can make the stuffiest details entertaining. These and other amusing winks and nudges poke fun at the Dan Brown school of suspense fiction, even as they evoke it.
656 pages
First published September 30, 2005
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36 people want to read
About the author
Jim Nisbet
38 books24 followersSan Francisco writer Jim Nisbet has published eleven novels, including the acclaimed Lethal Injection. He has also published five volumes of poetry. His novel, Dark Companion, was shorted-listed for the 2006 Hammett Prize. Various of his works have been translated into French, German, Japanese, Italian, Polish, Hungarian, Greek, Russian and Romanian.
Aside from reading and performing his own work for some forty-five years, Nisbet has written and seen produced a modest handful of one-act plays and monologues, including Valentine, Note from Earth, WonderEndz™ SmackVision™ and Alas, Poor Yorick, and himself directed the original productions of most of these works.
Aside from reading and performing his own work for some forty-five years, Nisbet has written and seen produced a modest handful of one-act plays and monologues, including Valentine, Note from Earth, WonderEndz™ SmackVision™ and Alas, Poor Yorick, and himself directed the original productions of most of these works.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 15, 2008
This book is for readers who enjoy a good puzzle, witty dialog, and a twist at the end.
The da Vinci Code has spun off a lot of wannabe's, but this book delivers the goods. The Maguffin is the Codex, the item everyone is searching for, except for the main character, who everyone assumes has it.
The San Francisco locale, quirky characters, old fashioned snappy dialog all add up to an atmospheric romp. Don't be scared of the length of this novel, as the pace keeps the reader turning the pages.
Want a good escape, a little history, a little mystery, a pleasant read? Try The Syracuse Codex on for style.
The da Vinci Code has spun off a lot of wannabe's, but this book delivers the goods. The Maguffin is the Codex, the item everyone is searching for, except for the main character, who everyone assumes has it.
The San Francisco locale, quirky characters, old fashioned snappy dialog all add up to an atmospheric romp. Don't be scared of the length of this novel, as the pace keeps the reader turning the pages.
Want a good escape, a little history, a little mystery, a pleasant read? Try The Syracuse Codex on for style.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 3, 2018
Jim Nisbet is one of the most talented writers I came across last year. In fact, I think his off-kilter book, "Dark Companion" was maybe the third best read on my top-ten of 2017 list. And while his talent is more than evident in parts of "The Syracuse Codex," those parts are just so few and far between that I can't bring myself to recommend it. I actually had some trouble finishing the book.
The plot concerns a man named Danny Kestrel who frames fine artwork and lives near the bottom of San Francisco's very tony (and very insufferable) society scene. The book's eponymous Macguffin enters the picture (I'll spare you the puns) and Mr. Kestrel soon finds a target on his back. The intrigue deepens and the cast of characters widens. It seems that by the end of the second act Nisbet has too many plates spinning at once and they begin to come crashing down. To make matters even worse, massive unexpurgated whacks of Edward Gibbon's "The History of the Decline of the Roman Empire" are interleaved throughout the book, grinding the narrative to a halt. It all reminded me a bit of the eccentric writer Harry Stephen Keeler, who would sometimes sneak his wife's writing into his books by having one of his characters conveniently discover something written by Ms. Keeler and start to read. Keeler of course was a true original, but then again so was Ed Wood.
Finally, although I admire Nisbet's ability (when he's in form) to buck the trend in noir fiction by flouting minimalist conventions, his descriptions border on the logorrheic and the obsession with proving erudition (along with a constellation of characters with a similar penchant, who name-drop Proust as if they're getting paid for it) finally becomes too much. Someone once said, "Don't use the word 'azure' when you mean 'blue.'" "The Syracuse Codex" feels like it was written by someone who has a software program that automatically replaces a first choice for a word with the longest multi-syllabic, foreign-sounding one that can be found. This is, ultimately, the kind of misfire that can only be created by someone with a lot of talent and knowledge but little editorial oversight. It's admirable in someways, but it's maddening, and, worst of all, it's not fun to read.
The plot concerns a man named Danny Kestrel who frames fine artwork and lives near the bottom of San Francisco's very tony (and very insufferable) society scene. The book's eponymous Macguffin enters the picture (I'll spare you the puns) and Mr. Kestrel soon finds a target on his back. The intrigue deepens and the cast of characters widens. It seems that by the end of the second act Nisbet has too many plates spinning at once and they begin to come crashing down. To make matters even worse, massive unexpurgated whacks of Edward Gibbon's "The History of the Decline of the Roman Empire" are interleaved throughout the book, grinding the narrative to a halt. It all reminded me a bit of the eccentric writer Harry Stephen Keeler, who would sometimes sneak his wife's writing into his books by having one of his characters conveniently discover something written by Ms. Keeler and start to read. Keeler of course was a true original, but then again so was Ed Wood.
Finally, although I admire Nisbet's ability (when he's in form) to buck the trend in noir fiction by flouting minimalist conventions, his descriptions border on the logorrheic and the obsession with proving erudition (along with a constellation of characters with a similar penchant, who name-drop Proust as if they're getting paid for it) finally becomes too much. Someone once said, "Don't use the word 'azure' when you mean 'blue.'" "The Syracuse Codex" feels like it was written by someone who has a software program that automatically replaces a first choice for a word with the longest multi-syllabic, foreign-sounding one that can be found. This is, ultimately, the kind of misfire that can only be created by someone with a lot of talent and knowledge but little editorial oversight. It's admirable in someways, but it's maddening, and, worst of all, it's not fun to read.
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July 28, 2015This copy is signed by the author.
July 8, 2013
- un roman extrem de lung, interminabil, care m-a plictisit profund.
descrierea de pe coperta este absolt divina - te imbie placut - dar adevarul din paginile cartii lasa foarte mult de dorit. :(
descrierea de pe coperta este absolt divina - te imbie placut - dar adevarul din paginile cartii lasa foarte mult de dorit. :(
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews