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Title: The Fairy Gunmother by Daniel Pennac, Ian Monk ISBN: 1-86046-445-9 Publisher: Harvill Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.99

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Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (10 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: beauty is precious
Comment: Life is too serious to be spent reading crime fiction. And most crime writers are too in awe of themselves to write a good story, rather rendering technical reports readable and twisting shaky plots as if they were helter-skelter designers. I have made exceptions in the past, for the likes of Chandler and Hammett, who could use language with skill. I've even made allowances for James Ellroy, but I think I might just have been revisiting the Stephen King phase of my youth there.

Time for another exception to the rule. The Fairy Gunmother, by Daniel Pennac. No summation of its plot would do it justice. Suffice to say it's set in Paris (originally written in French, translated into English) its got old people, drugs, guns, good guys and bad guys and some very very very likeable characters. Just find it and read it and bathe in the beauty of the writing. It's got all the characteristics you'd want of an old friend, plus a plot twist or two that might genuinely surprise you (now how often does that happen?).

Rating: 5
Summary: Pennac is the most exciting French contemporary writer!
Comment: I have now read all four novels about the Malaussene Family saga a dozen times each. It was love at first sight. Pennac's plots are always solid, while being at the time the support for his social comment. I actually translated last year The Fairy Gunmother (although I called it The Shotgun Fairy), for fun, so that I could share my favourite author with my French-Language challenged friends. Those who did not like the book aren't my friends anylonger!

Rating: 5
Summary: brilliant magic realism murder mystery
Comment: Pennac has an incredible ease with language, and an imagination that defies defintion. The quasi fairytale aspect to this murder mystery makes it poignant and amusing, but never trite. This book is about language, litterature, character development; not about the murder solving. I read it in French, and appreciated Pennac's mix of the everyday (and even amusingly vulgar), and academic French.
I have never reviewed a book at Amazon, but felt compelled to with this book.
If ever you are looking for an escapist book that still manages to have some weight to it, this is the one.
The 500+ reviewer who concentrated on the race aspect of the book clearly did not read beyond the first 5 pages (a racist detective who has nothing whatsoever to do with the plot gets shot). Shame on them.

Similar Books:

	Title: The Scapegoat by Daniel Pennac ISBN: 1860466117 Publisher: Harvill Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.00
	Title: Write to Kill by Daniel Pennac, Ian Monk ISBN: 1860467261 Publisher: Harvill Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00