About a month ago, Jost A Mon blog posted a “roundup of translated crime fiction consumed in April” – which included several books by writers from Central and Eastern Europe.

Below is a displeased Russian blogger's blitz review (RUS) of John Grisham‘s 21st novel, The Associate:

LJ user dolboeb/Anton Nossik – May 24, 2009

I've read Grisham's latest thriller, The Associate.

[Aleksandra Marinina, a best-selling Russian crime fiction author] also had one such detective novel, titled “An Unwilling Murderer.”

The author makes up an [intricate] plot and sits down enthusiastically to write it out, twists plenty of plot lines and, closer to the middle of the narration, suddenly loses all interest in the manuscript, throws in an ellipsis in the most interesting spot, and in this form sends it off to the publisher. The publishers are probably somewhat [shocked] by such an avant-garde end, but business is business: where the reader expects a decisive battle of good against evil and the solution of all the mysteries, they hastily construct a final chapter about nothing, arrange the resulting half-a-novel in [huge] type, for [the book] to look thicker, and throw it out to the stores, where a multi-million army of the writer's fans diligently wipes the resulting half off the shelves for the price of a whole thriller.

And the funniest thing is that there is really no great difference between a thriller written to the end and one written to the middle. The goal – to grasp the reader's attention for a few hours on public transportation or at a beach – is achieved equally successfully [in both cases].