That there’s not enough time in the world to read everything you want to is something I am sure that every non-casual reader of this blog knows full well, even if you restrict yourself to mystery, crime and detective fiction –- or even only a small nook and cranny of the genre, which maybe you do but I try not do. I like to keep my horizons are wide open as possible, although there are some topics and/or themes at which I draw the line (and about which I will tell you some other time).

   And when you discover a blog dedicated to one of those small nooks and crannies of the genre, chock full of books you never knew about before, much less you’ve ever read any of them, why, it’s enough to make a grown man (or woman) cry. Figuratively speaking, of course.

   This is what happened to me this evening. The particular nook is International Noir Fiction, and the link will take you there immediately, if you’re so inclined.

   I’m not sure if Glenn Harper does all of the reviews and commentary, but at a first go-through on my part, it appears that he does. He does one or two posts a week, and going down through the current page, here are the recent objects of his attention:

LEIF DAVIDSEN – Lime’s Photograph [Danish emigre living in Spain]

JAMES CHURCH – A Corpse in the Koryo [North Korea]

MANUEL VÁZQUEZ MONTALBÁN – The Buenos Aires Quintet [Spanish detective in Argentina]

GENE KERRIGAN – Little Criminals [Ireland]

ÅSA LARSSON – The Blood Split [Sweden]

QIU XIAOLONG – A Case of Two Cities [China: Inspector Chen]

PACO IGNACIO TAIBO – The Uncomfortable Dead [Barcelona detective Pepe Carvalho]

PERNILLE RYGG – The Butterfly Effect [Scandinavian sort-of private detective Igi Heitmann]

   All worthy, I’m convinced, of hunting down and reading, if only my bank account didn’t have this huge and near-permanent dent in it. I won’t comment on the books themselves, as Glenn’s read them and I haven’t, and he’s already done a super job of it. This list essentially covers the month of February, and the month’s not yet over. Oh, as the man said, my.

   A big thanks to the post on The Rap Sheet that J. Kingston Pierce just did along these same lines and which pointed me in Glenn’s direction. At least I think I should thank him. Maybe he’s not forgiven me for confusing his name with that of western fiction writer Frank Richardson Pierce in a recent blog entry of mine, since corrected, and he’s getting even. (He also points out Wade Wright, the subject of the preceding entry here on M*F, as an author whose books he’s newly found as worthy of the chase. You and me both, Jeff.)