Islamic tiling and calligraphy

A commenter on Making Lightnotes that there is an excellent article on Islamic tile design in the current issue of Saudi Aramco World, including the Moorish designers' discovery of quasi-non-periodic tiling rather a long time ago.

He also linked to a fascinating article on the history and problems of typesetting Arabic script. If you're interested in either calligraphy or the geeky aspects of typesetting this is well worth a read.

I think I must have a ferret around this magazine's website when I have more time...

Book review: WJ Burley -- Wycliffe and the Winsor Blue

When local businessman Edwin Garland dies of a heart attack, there's not much surprise in it. But when his son is shot dead on the evening of his funeral, both deaths become the focus of a murder investigation. Was Garland murdered as well? And even if he wasn't, are the deaths connected?

Garland's will hints at some enormous joke perpetrated by Garland and his friend, artist Gifford Tate; a joke that has not yet finished playing out. Tate died some years ago, and the last remaining member of their trio of friends has no idea what his friends were up to. Wycliffe realises that the will may provide more than the obvious financial clues as to motives for murder. But teasing out the real clues from the abundant red herrings may take him a little while...

It's not difficult to work out what joke Gifford and Tate were playing, as the clues are clearly signposted for the reader -- perhaps a little too clearly, because it takes Wycliffe an annoyingly long time to realise what is going on. But there's still plenty of meat in the shifting stories offered by the suspects as they try to protect themselves and their secrets, and knowing what the joke was is only part of what's needed to be sure of whodunnit and why. Watching Wycliffe and his colleagues painstakingly sift through conflicting stories and motives to find the real truth is an entertaining way to pass a couple of hours.


LibraryThing entry
Wycliffe and the Winsor Blue at Amazon UK
Wycliffe and the Winsor Blue (Wycliffe Series) at Amazon US
Wycliffe and the Winsor Blue at Powells

book review: James Coltrane -- Talon

Joe Talon is an anachronism. He's a hippie ex-surfer with a James Bond complex working for the CIA, barely conforming at work and not hiding it. But Talon is very good at his job of checking anomalies in satellite photos. Too good. Talon spots an anomaly where no anomaly was marked for his attention, and starts digging into it. Talon's attention to something nobody was supposed to notice focuses attention on him--the sort of attention that has him running for his life.

Talon's choices are simple--die, disappear for good, or find a way to expose the conspirators within the Company while he's on the run. All three look like good choices to him at various times during the course of the novel, but Talon's final choice is to fight back.

Talon isn't a trained spy, just a highly specialised clerk; but he's bright and desperate and he's stolen some interesting goodies from work over the years. The ensuing chase makes for a thrilling read, with a lot of careful world building going into making the story feel realistic. The book was first published in 1978, so the technology is very dated now, of course; as are some of the social attitudes. But it's still a good read, even today.

LibraryThing entry
Talon at Amazon UK
Talon: A novel of suspense at Amazon US