Book Beat

#9: Plugged by Eoin Colfer

2012-02-10T19:44:00.000-05:00

An ex-soldier leaves Ireland for what he thinks is the relative peace and solitude of suburban New Jersey, only to get wrapped up in a few riotous days of kidnapping and murder in Eoin Colfer's Plugged.

Colfer is probably best know as the author of the Artemis Fowl young adult novels, and seems to have made a concerted effort to reach the other end of the spectrum with this foul-mouthed, raunchy action-oriented comedy. The "Plugged" of the title refers to not only the euphemism for killing but also two characters' obsession with hair transplants done by a shady doctor (whose ghost speaks to the protagonist throughout).

Although I felt the humor seemed strained at times, I enjoyed the action and plotting of this brisk little story and would look for more of Colfer's adult work. It is definitely not for young adults, however, and woe be to the parent that buys it for a young person.

I listened to a good audio book version of this from Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#8: Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

2012-02-07T19:43:00.000-05:00

Third-string sci-fi writer Kilgore Trout makes a pilgrimage to a small midwestern town, where a brush with an unstable car salesman sets off a sad series of events in Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions.

I have been a big Vonnegut fan since my teen years and have read practically all of his work, but somehow this one slipped through the cracks. When I saw it at giveaway prices for my beloved Kindle I snatched it up and gave it a try.

In a way I'm glad I did not read this as a teenager because I think I have a greater appreciation for it now. Despite some funny drawings and observations it is as melancholy a piece of metafiction as I've ever read.

Vonnegut writes as if he is telling someone who is unfamiliar with the world of the early 1970s what is going on, and now some forty years later this conceit seems more resonant. He is a major character himself in the story, literally injecting himself into a bar at the Holiday Inn at the tumultuous denouement.

Rewarding for fans of Vonnegut's work, as Breakfast of Champions features the appearances of many characters from other novels, including his alter-ego Trout. Recommended.

#7: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

2012-02-06T19:42:00.000-05:00

In a depleted future world, society has largely retreated into OASIS, a virtual world coded by a Bill Gates/Steven Jobs figure with an 80s obsession. Upon his death, he releases a "treasure hunt" into the virtual world that spells danger for a teenager in the real world in Ernest Cline's debut Ready Player One.

If The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz was the ultimate tribute to growing up in the 70s, then Cline's book will have the same importance for readers who grew up in the 80s. Cline name-checks everything from old arcade games, imported Japanese TV shows, Matthew Broderick movies, and dog-eared D&D modules in our protagonist's quest to escape his trailer-park life and reach his reward.

I thoroughly enjoyed Cline's novel and read it quickly, and can think of a few friends who would enjoy this just as much. Recommended for fans of nerd-dom from the 80s forward.

I checked this out from Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#6: The Man with the Getaway Face by Richard Stark

2012-01-29T22:11:00.000-05:00

Master thief Parker runs afoul of the mob, and goes under the knife to get a new face; broke, he gets involved in an armored car robbery against his better judgement, and it continues to go more and more haywire in The Man with the Getaway Face.

This is the second book in the long-running Parker series by Donald Westlake. I have read Westlake steadily over the years (and once got to direct him on a TV show) but had only skimmed the surface of this pseudonymous series. When Darwyn Cooke did a graphic novel version of The Hunter I became interested again and picked up the first few novels for my beloved Kindle.

Parker is a very tough, amoral crook who singlemindedly flattens anything in his way, including shady partners, nosy bystanders, aggressive cops, and other inconveniences.

In this outing, a very fragile alliance of criminals unravels quickly; hampered more by the fact that Parker's plastic surgeon gets murdered, with Parker being a prime suspect. It probably won't surprise the reader to find out that crime does pay, and Parker ends with an eye on more illegal exploits.

I enjoyed this very hard-boiled crime story and will pick up the next Parker novel before long.

#5: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin

2012-01-25T22:50:00.000-05:00

A lone envoy from a galactic federation lands on a frozen world in Ursula K. LeGuin's notable science fiction novel The Left Hand of Darkness.

After reading and enjoying LeGuin's Earthsea fantasy novels I tackled this series of related sci-fi books (beginning with Rocannon's World). This, the fourth one, is one of LeGuin's best-known tales, a sophisticated, philosophical adventure set on an ice planet populated with an asexual race who become male or female only a few days a month. How this impacts politics, war, nation-building and more, was I'm sure pretty heady stuff in 1969 and is still pretty interesting today. It is as fully-realized an alternate world as I have seen.

But The Left Hand of Darkness is also quite exciting. The novel is basically broken into three parts: in the first, the envoy deals with a mad king; in the second, he goes across the border into a socialist-type country and is promptly put into a gulag; and in the third, a friend rescues him, and they have a Jack London-style race across a glacier field back to civilization.

I have held onto this paperback for a long time and am glad I finally tackled it. It is a great, rewarding read for science fiction and fantasy fans. Recommended.

#4: Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

2012-01-24T22:48:00.000-05:00

A model gets shot in the face, destroying her features, and subsequently--under the tutelage of a transsexual friend--ends up heading out on a cross-continental crime spree in Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters.

This is an early work by the cult novelist, and like all of his books has a least a little something to make any reader squeamish; this one includes murder, maiming, arson, incest, child molesting, drug abuse, and an infatuation with Rona Barrett.

I have pointed out in other reviews of Palahniuk's work that when you get past the shock value of his novels you realize he is a pretty good writer. Although slighter than a lot of his more famous novels (Fight Club prominently among them) Invisible Monsters still packs a punch with plenty of surprises.

For fans of Palahniuk, I would rate it a more modest work; for the casual reader, it is dark and funny but has to be approached with an open mind.

I found this on www.paperbackswap.com.

#3: He Died With His Eyes Open by Derek Raymond

2012-01-23T22:44:00.000-05:00

A nameless London copper, working dead end cases out of a notorious police station called The Factory, becomes dangerously obsessed with a bum's murder in Derek Raymond's powerful crime novel He Died With His Eyes Open.

The policeman becomes enamored of a series of philosophical audio recordings that the murder victim made on his long slide downward, and ends up meeting--and then, strangely, courting--the cold-hearted beauty who precipitated his decline.

Derek Raymond's "Factory" series, written in the 80s and 90s, has often been pointed to as launching a London noir movement; I don't doubt David Peace (with his Yorkshire Ripper novels) had to have been a fan, among others. It also seems as if the late Derek Raymond was an interesting person in his own right, which I am sure has led to the mystique as well.

I first stumbled across Raymond's novels on the South Bank in London among rows of used books; my greatest regret in that visit to London was that I did not snatch them up right when I saw them, for when I went back later they were gone. I remembered the author and, when I saw them on Amazon, purchased the first one for my beloved Kindle and read it quickly.

He Died With His Eyes Open is very tough, and very frank, and thus is recommended for discriminating tastes. I will definitely read more in the series.

#2: The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson by Douglas Lindsay

2012-01-18T22:08:00.000-05:00

A dour barber with delusions of grandeur working in a second-tier shop dreams of murder and retribution; meanwhile, a squad of bored, weary, bickering cops hunt a serial killer terrorizing Glasgow. Where these two storylines intersect, in a maelstrom of violence, is at the heart of Douglas Lindsay's The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson.

The description makes it sound like pretty grim fare, but Lindsay's novel is full of surprising humor, and is almost surreal in spots. If Thomas Harris and Nick Hornby opened a barber shop, and Douglas Adams was the first customer, the three of them together might brainstorm up something like this.

I was caught unawares at first, but once I got into the rhythm of the storytelling I found myself wrapped up in Barney Thomson's misfortunes. Lindsay writes in more of a cinematic style and probably owes more to post-modern directors like Quentin Tarantino than the noir traditions of authors like Cornell Woolrich.

The downside of having an unlikable schlub as a protagonist is offset by some humorous writing and interesting ideas. There has apparently been enough interest that Barney Thomson returns at least twice more, and I'm sure I will look for these as well.

I received this for my beloved Kindle from Blasted Heath, a publisher of e-books, and read it steadily.

#1: The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi

2012-01-16T12:47:00.000-05:00

Thriller writer Douglas Preston goes to Florence to research a new novel, with his family in tow, and rents a house that happens to be near the site of a real-life double murder attributed to a serial killer. Preston becomes very involved--perhaps too involved--in the story, working alongside a local investigative reporter, and it all goes in some surprising directions in The Monster of Florence.

I grabbed this non-fiction work out of a stack at a library book sale largely because of a visit to Florence last spring. I had picked up and put down a lot of Preston's fiction but thought I would give him another look because of the locale and subject matter.

The story is fascinating and almost wouldn't make a believable fiction story, as the hunt for the serial killer involves political machinations, officials trying to use the case for personal gain, the shadow of secret societies, low-lifes working various angles, and a full cast of cops, criminals, crackpots, cast-offs, and other colorful characters. The crimes, and subsequent investigations, cover several decades and end with a surprising denouement (which, incidentally, isn't the capture of the Monster).

Overall, I would recommend the book for fans of true crime and of Preston's fiction. In general I think the reader's enjoyment of the work will depend largely on how one feels about Preston putting himself square in the middle of a string of unsolved murders that has unintended consequences for himself and others. Interesting reading.

Best of 2011

2011-12-29T13:06:00.000-05:00

I met my challenge of reading 50 books again this year, and for those interested wanted to take a second to list my top ten favorite reads of 2011.

Embassytown by China Mieville

The Devil's Star by Jo Nesbo

Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indridason

Robbie's Wife by Russell Hill

The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer

The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Nobody's Angel by Jack Clark

Up in the Air by Walter Kirn

Nineteen Seventy-Four by David Peace

Bossypants by Tina Fey

And five honorable mentions:

Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan

Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland by Patton Oswalt

Our Kind of Traitor by John LeCarre

This list is fairly heavy on crime, mystery, and thriller, and I admit to feeling a bit of ennui when making this out. I'm getting an itching in my mind to read a little better, or at least smarter, for a while. We shall see how it goes, but based on what I bought with my Amazon gift cards, I am going to try.

I have also now mastered this challenge for, unbelievably, four years in a row. Here are my lists of favorite reads from 2010, 2009, and the first go-round in 2008. To maybe spice it up in 2012, I will be taking suggestions from readers. Let me know what you think is good and I will try to mix a few new ideas.

Cracking IQ 84 by Haruki Murakami tonight!

#50: The Drop by Michael Connelly

2011-12-18T11:12:00.000-05:00

Harry Bosch works two crimes at once in Michael Connelly's The Drop; first, a cold case about the long-ago murder of a young woman and second, a politically-charged case featuring the death of the son of one of Bosch's old foes.

The Drop refers to the possible murder or suicide of the young man, who went out the window of a hotel; but it also refers to a slang term about Bosch, Connelly's world-weary and only slightly tarnished L.A. cop, nearing retirement.

I was glad I reached my 50th book of the year with one of my favorite authors and his latest novel. After a bit of a lull, I think Connelly's books have been consistently strong over the last few years. He is a former reporter, evident in his clipped prose and hard-nosed style, which I enjoy.

I think the Harry Bosch novels will stand as one of the great contemporary mystery series when Michael Connelly finally closes the last chapter. Recommended for mystery fans.

I borrowed this from the Farmland Public Library in Farmland, Indiana, and consumed it quickly.

#49: Carte Blanche by Jeffrey Deaver

2011-12-15T22:42:00.000-05:00

James Bond is back in action against a recycling magnate with a death fetish in Jeffrey Deaver's low-stakes initial outing with 007, Carte Blanche.

Despite some globe-trotting through Eastern Europe, England, and South Africa, overall this is a bit of a banal spy story, whether the name of James Bond is attached or not. And yet it is hard to identify this retooled Bond, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who still likes fast cars but has more politely contemporary views on drinking and women. The main character really could have been any protagonist of this type of story.

Although I have enjoyed Deaver's crime fiction from time to time, I was a bit put out by a mechanic in this story that kept cheating the reader by holding back key plot elements until later reveals, almost as one might see in a screenplay. That being said, if Deaver does another Bond novel I will probably check it out to see where he goes with it next.

It might be unfair to critique Deaver's take on Bond so quickly on the heels of Sebastian Faulks' superior Bond novel Devil May Care, which fits directly into Fleming's original series where he left off in the 60s. I would have loved to see Faulks do another one that fit directly into the canon.

I started reading this borrowed from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library, put it down, then picked it up on audio book and finished it on a long drive back and forth to Chicago. Recommended for Bond completists.

#48: Dead Money by Ray Banks

2011-11-27T13:14:00.000-05:00

A pair of British salesmen spend their evenings drinking and gambling and get in trouble slowly, then quickly, in Ray Banks' noir Dead Money.

Banks gives his protagonist that Jim Thompson spin that I always appreciate, where his actions make sense to him even as the repercussions for those actions grown in intensity; a classic "unreliable narrator" story often favored in crime novels.

Banks writes in a clean style, looped with inky black humor, and the plot goes at a lightning pace, heaping dread upon dread. My only complaint is that I felt that the novel probably needed one or two more chapters to fully realize all of the plotlines set forth.

I was pleasantly surprised when I was emailed a copy of this novel for my beloved Kindle from Blasted Heath. I have become a fan of these U.K. crime writers, quietly supplanting their Scandinavian brethren who have gotten a toehold on U.S. shores in recent years.

I will definitely look for more from Ray Banks and would recommend this to fans of the genre.

#47: I'm Down by Mishna Wolff

2011-11-12T23:18:00.001-05:00

Mishna Wolff grows up one of the only white kids in a black neighborhood, and then becomes one of the only poor kids at an affluent school for gifted students. The situation is compounded by the looming shadow of her white father, an underemployed, overpowering figure who identifies solely with black culture; yet Wolff brings a sense of humor to her life story in the autobiography I'm Down.

I listened to an audiobook version read by the author, which I think added to the enjoyment as Wolff did a good job telling her story. The reader's enjoyment will probably rest in how much they identify with Wolff and her various problems, both major and minor.

Although at times a little uneven in tone, I was compelled to find out where her story was going, from her early childhood and parents' divorce to her tween years and her father's second marriage. Wolff has apparently led a fairly interesting life since then which I would imagine will be the subject of future volumes.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#46: Embassytown by China Mieville

2011-11-03T23:17:00.000-04:00

A small human embassy on a remote alien planet welcomes a new ambassador; but a resulting faux pas almost destroys both human and alien civilizations in China Mieville's thought-provoking sci-fi novel Embassytown.

I labored long to come up with a short description of the novel and have had a hard time articulating its depth and breadth to others. It is dense and fascinating and brimming with all kinds of original thinking, especially in terms of the nature of language and thought.

I am somewhat new to Mieville and have learned that he is part of the writing tradition called The New Weird, which is I think the hip contemporary descendant of what I called the "hippie-fi" writing of the 60s and 70s from authors like Michael Moorcock, Philip K. Dick, and Samuel R. Delany.

Mieville has also stated he would like to write a novel in every genre from western to detective to so on; to me this one hews closest to horror, and even makes an oblique reference to George Romero's zombie films. But perhaps more so I would say Mieville is trying to capture some of the baroque nature of Delany's Dahlgren or Dick's martian novels. Either author would probably give Embassytown a nod of approval along with a scratch of the head.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.

Embassytown has been one of my favorite reads of the year, and I would recommend it to fantasy or sci-fi fans who want a challenge.

#45: Baby Moll by John Farris

2011-11-01T23:14:00.000-04:00

The strong arm of an aging crime boss gets out of the racket when he meets an innocent and beautiful girl (naturally), but gets pulled back in (naturally), when a vengeful killer stalks the gang in Baby Moll by John Farris.

Baby Moll is a tough-minded entry in the very readable Hard Case Crime collection, an admirable paperback series of lost noirs and contemporary stories in a similar vein.

This one was written by John Farris, who had a lengthy career writing in a variety of pulp traditions. What was unbelievable to find out, after a little googling, was that this novel was written basically straight out of high school. It is hard to fathom Farris had the sophistication to write some of the sequences in the story, despite however many Mickey Spillane novels he might have read beforehand.

I got this, with no small amount of surprise, from a Dollar General spinner rack of paperbacks.

A very sturdy entry in the series and worth a look for fans of organized crime novels in general and Hard Case Crime in particular.

#44: Official Book Club Selection by Kathy Griffin

2011-10-16T14:13:00.000-04:00

Comedian Kathy Griffin tells all about her long, slow climb to stardom from working-class Chicago to second-tier Hollywood in Official Book Club Selection.

I understand that some may find Griffin to be an acquired taste, but I have always found her extremely funny. I really enjoy her reality show Life on the D-List but cemented my fandom when I caught her live during the Gay Pride Festival in San Diego a few summers ago.

I think it helped tremendously that I listened to this in audiobook form on a recent long road trip to Georgia, and absorbed it in one fell swoop. Griffin narrated the audiobook in her usual style, which I think enhanced some of the writing that might not have been as interesting on the page.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana and liked it a lot; recommended for fans, especially in the audiobook format.

#43: The Hunter by Richard Stark

2011-10-12T12:12:00.000-04:00

Parker is a professional thief who is double-crossed and left for dead by his wife and best friend, then single-mindedly decides to get his cut of the big take no matter who he has to bring down--on up to the top gangsters in the country.

The Hunter is a very tough-minded crime novel from the early 60s, the first Parker novel by Donald Westlake under the pseudonym of Richard Stark. It is a bleak noir with no likeable characters, but written in a terse, kinetic style.

I have been a long-time fan of Westlake (and once got a chance to meet him, when he appeared on a TV show I was directing) and have read a lot of his large body of work, but had not really dipped into his famous Parker series.

I got interested in reading The Hunter for two reasons; first was because I read a very cool graphic novel version done by one of my favorite artists, Darwyn Cooke, and the second was because I nabbed it for my beloved Kindle for free.

As soon as I finished it I grabbed a handful more Kindle Parker novels for pocket change, and dived right into The Man with the Getaway Face, the second novel in the series (and also a good graphic novel).

Recommended for fans of inky-black noir.

#42: Assignment The Cairo Dancers by Edward S. Aaarons

2011-10-08T20:30:00.000-04:00

CIA operative Sam Durell goes into action against a Middle Eastern zealot kidnapping world scientists for nefarious means in Edward S. Aarons' Assignment The Cairo Dancers.

Aarons wrote a long, reputable series of novels about Durell over several decades; this entry, from 1965, may be one of the latest ones I have read to date.

While his 50s novels have a Cold War sobriety, the farther I have read into the 60s the more I have seen the more outlandish trappings of the spy novels and movies of that era; this one features a sinister German dwarf, a pair of feral twin hitmen, a giant death laser and of course a secret base hidden in a mountain that Durell has to fight his way out of. Naturally he also finds respite long enough to provide comfort and aid to several women in need.

This is a solid adventure in a really underrated series that I have yet to find makes a false step. I found this one at a used bookstore in Muncie Indiana for 99 cents.

#41: Our Kind of Traitor by John LeCarre

2011-10-02T12:09:00.000-04:00

A young British couple on vacation end up in a fateful tennis match against a Russian businessman that sends the pair spiraling into the shadowy world of espionage in John LeCarre's Our Kind of Traitor.

LeCarre's work in the 60s and 70s, especially his George Smiley novels, are almost without peer in the spy genre. Admittedly I have picked up and put down a lot of his novels since, finding them a bit mixed as the years have gone on. Probably the last one I really enjoyed was Our Game, but admittedly I have avoided a few newer entries that--based on this novel--might be worth a look.

This one struck my fancy from the beginning, written with a good mix of dark humor, interesting characters, complex plotting, and bursts of sobering violence. It was great to see LeCarre still has some in the tank well into his 80s, writing a contemporary and relevant spy thriller. Recommended for long-time fans of LeCarre and/or the genre.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana and read it at a steady pace.

#40: Slammer by Allan Guthrie

2011-09-28T22:17:00.000-04:00

A young prison guard is tormented by fellow guards and inmates alike, ending in an explosive breakout, in Allan Guthrie's relentless noir Slammer.

I am a fan of Guthrie's hard-boiled, sardonic Scottish crime fiction, those of which that I've read are a reverent throwback to an earlier era. This one features a classic unreliable narrator--I'm not sure if that is a noir sub-category, but it should be--and a very Cornell Woolrich-style downbeat ending (one that maybe goes on a half step too long). It is very tough-minded in the Jim Thompson tradition and is probably not for delicate tastes, especially in some harrowing and graphic prison scenes.

Guthrie himself sent this to me for my beloved Kindle, for which I was grateful (though I would have probably bought it anyway). I was hooked right away and read it quickly. Recommended for noir fans and those seeking a change from American crime writing.

#39: Under the Bright Lights by Daniel Woodrell

2011-09-04T13:23:00.000-04:00

A mostly honest cop and his mostly crooked brother, who owns a local bar, deal with murder and mayhem in Daniel Woodrell's Under the Bright Lights.

Woodrell later wrote Winter's Bone, which became a very worthwhile film and seems to have generated some interest in his older work, including this reissue of his first novel.

Although he is frequently compared to Cormac McCarthy now, this early outing is more James Lee Burke, with colorful characters in a moody, corrupt small town in Louisiana surrounded by foreboding swamps (which naturally play into the denouement).

I think one of the more interesting elements in the story, about the death of a prominent politician that then reveals secrets best buried, was that the cycle of crime and punishment played out through to the end with little influence from the protagonist. It gave the story a larger noir feel, like some of Cornell Woolrich's better work.

I bought this at a goodbye price from a nearly empty Borders on the verge of closing as "The Bayou Trilogy," with two more novels featuring the main characters forthcoming.

A good read and my first foray into Daniel Woodrell; I will definitely read the others.

#38: Robbie's Wife by Russell Hill

2011-08-30T18:30:00.000-04:00

An aging screenwriter, not exactly washed up because he was always an also-ran, tries to restart his foundering career by going to a remote English farmhouse; but instead almost instantly fall into a dangerous infatuation with a farmer's wife in Russell Hill's Robbie's Wife.

Robbie's Wife is a mature noir with a classic unreliable narrator. It is part of the very notable Hard Case Crime series, which releases lost classics alongside contemporary counterparts. This is a great addition to the series, a very strong modern entry that stands alongside some of my favorites, including Scott Smith's A Simple Plan and Robert Ward's Four Kinds of Rain, books that would bring a smile to Jim Thompson's face.

Hill's book also reads as a solid literary piece, with a lot of sharp writing and an interesting subplot about the Mad Cow Disease issue in England. Recommended for any readers.

I nabbed this off of www.paperbackswap.com and read it steadily.

#37: Nobody's Angel by Jack Clark

2011-08-26T18:00:00.000-04:00

A Chicago cab driver ends up in the middle of two horrible crimes, the maiming of a teen prostitute and the murder of a fellow cabbie; cruising the streets in the shadows of the city's worst housing projects, he almost subconsciously moves towards solving both in Jack Clark's superior contemporary noir Nobody's Angel.

This book came out as part of Hard Case Crime, a top-flight collection of lost noirs and modern authors writing in the same vein. This novel has a very unusual history, as Clark is an actual Chicago cab driver who self-published the book originally and sold it out of the front seat of his cab.

It is an astounding story when one finds out how good the writing is. It is obvious that Clark knows the mean streets of the Windy City intimately, and the characters are well-rounded.

If Cornell Woolrich drove a cab, and Jim Thompson was a passenger in the back seat, they might put their heads together and come up with something like Nobody's Angel. Recommended.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana and read it quickly.

#36: Zombie Spaceship Wasteland by Patton Oswalt

2011-08-13T07:34:00.000-04:00

I was only tangentially aware of comedian Patton Oswalt (mostly from the movie Big Fan, which I learned about at the Traverse City Film Festival) but by the end of this collection of personal essays and humorous stories felt as if we were brothers under the skin.

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland is largely about a misspent youth of Dungeons and Dragons, comic books, b-movies, and the like, written in a darkly humorous vein. I especially liked an essay about working in a movie theater in the 80s, one about working at the bottom of the comedian food chain, and an epic poem written to his last D&D character. The title comes from an essay about how every young dude will write a story that either involves zombies, spaceships, or wastelands; I had all three in me as a teen.

I would recommend this book by and large to a narrow audience of nerds about the same age as me and Patton Oswalt, but I think it would have some general appeal. I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library after the title caught my eye and read the slender tome at a good clip.

#35: Bossypants by Tina Fey

2011-08-12T16:00:00.000-04:00

Pointedly funny autobiography from Tina Fey starts with her Pennsylvania childhood and runs helter skelter up to her tenure on 30 Rock in Bossypants.

I was a big fan of Fey on SNL and like her own oddball show and thus was predisposed to like this book (and I think it also helped that I listened to the audiobook version, where I could hear her own voice). She glosses over a lot of things (and is much easier on Saturday Night Live then Jay Mohr or Sarah Silverman were in the books they wrote) but her funny stories, and messages of empowerment, are worthwhile.

I found it was incredibly dangerous to listen to the audiobook version of this as I was laughing so hard a few times I was almost crying, bad when driving. Recommended.

#34: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

2011-08-10T22:36:00.000-04:00

The final chapter in the Hunger Games trilogy finds our protagonist, Katniss, helping overthrow the government (personified by her enemy President Snow) while realizing that the rebellion isn't all it's cracked up to be in Suzanne Collins Mockingjay.

The first two books in this trilogy mainly center around Katniss participating in the Hunger Games, where the totalitarian central government keeps the districts in check by holding gladiator-style battles once a year in which only one living victor is allowed. Astute readers will see pieces and parts borrowed from all sorts of places, including The Giver and Lord of the Flies and Battle Royale. I have sometimes wondered if I enjoyed this series primarily because it reminded me of other things I liked.

This entry happens after the Hunger Games has ended, and to me seemed to show up the fact that the backstory of the world had been sketched in a bit slenderly in the first two volumes. There were scenes here that seemed reminiscent of stories from Logan's Run to Beneath the Planet of the Apes which left me to wonder if Collins would leave any pop culture stone unturned.

Interesting for those who have read the first two and who would like to see the story to completion. I got this for Christmas and finished it over time.

#33: The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto

2011-08-07T12:39:00.000-04:00

A young mural artist takes up with a fragile man with a dark past in Banana Yoshimoto's The Lake.

I had never heard of Yoshimoto and picked this up on a whim from the Farmland Public Library. She has apparently been big in Japan for some time.

The Lake is a slight, and slightly creepy, novel that read a bit like Haruki Murakami lite. The story ambles along as a blossoming romance between two troubled people until the pair visit a nearby lake cabin and two odd siblings who live there, one of who is an apparent psychic, where ties to a frightening past are revealed.

Without revealing too much of the backstory, I believe the novel would be pretty resonant to Japanese readers, and I enjoyed it well enough to look for more translations of Yoshimoto's work.

#32: The Ill Wind Contract by Philip Atlee

2011-08-05T22:24:00.025-04:00

Joe Gall, the Nullifier, goes on a smuggling operation for the U.S. government but ends up in the middle of the Indonesian civil war with nothing but his quick wit and a swingin' Swedish stewardess in Philip Atlee's The Ill Wind Contract.

I generally enjoy this long-running, politically incorrect spy series, largely written in the 60s and 70s, although the entries are sometimes uneven. This was one of my favorites, partially because it shows what seems to be a very accurate portrayal of the real-world civil war and has several real-life people. Atlee's sardonic style is especially sharp here as well.

Atlee has to be recommended only for the discriminating modern eye; for instance, liberals, communists, and "women's libbers" are all considered equally evil in this story, and subtle portrayals of other races is never a strong suit.

I got this from a used bookstore in Muncie, Indiana for less than a single U.S. dollar.

#31: The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly

2011-08-03T19:48:00.031-04:00

A lawyer working the foreclosure angle finds himself in the middle of a murder case when his client is accused of killing a banker in Michael Connelly's The Fifth Witness.

Michael Connelly is one of my favorite recent-era mystery writers and his series about police detective Harry Bosch is, despite a few low spots, a significant achievement in contemporary crime writing. He has dabbled in a few other characters but seems to be really finding some traction with Mickey Haller, first introduced in The Lincoln Lawyer.

Like Bosch, Haller has a lot of baggage, including two ex-wives, and feels most comfortable working out of the back seat of his car. He is also a fairly tarnished but ultimately likable character.

Connelly seems to have hit his stride with this entry, which has a neat story and compelling courtroom action. It has been interesting to see how the characters have evolved over the last few novels as well. I am beginning to look forward to the next Haller story almost as much as the next Bosch.

I checked this out from the Farmland Public Library in Farmland, Indiana and read it quickly.

#30: The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg

2011-08-02T21:21:00.042-04:00

Murders and suicides rock a small town in Sweden, sending ripples through various families and back a generation, in Camilla Lackberg's debut mystery The Ice Princess.

Lackberg has arrived on a big wave of Scandinavian novels that made it to our shores in recent years post-Stieg Larsson, and I have enjoyed them as a change of pace from their American counterparts; typically more morose and thoughtful and tangled with family dysfunction.

But Lackberg takes something back in return from here; a glimmer of romance, as the main character--writing a book about her childhood friend's death--takes up with a handsome police detective, a departure from the usual gloomy ruminations of her Scandinavian counterparts.

The darker novels of some of her colleagues (authors I enjoy like Arnaldur Indridason and Asa Larsson among them) might not be to everyone's taste, so Lackberg's relatively lighter fare might be more palatable to the general reader. I will still look for her next book even though I would not rate her as highly as some others (including current fave Jo Nesbo).

I picked this up in paperback and carried it around for a long while nibbling at it, from Europe to Chicago and finally home again.

#29: Assignment Sorrento Siren by Edward S. Aarons

2011-07-29T22:19:00.040-04:00

An American secret agent goes on a torture and murder spree, putting straight-arrow spy Sam Durell hot on his trail in Assignment Sorrento Siren, a brawny novel in the long-running espionage series by Edward S. Aarons.

The secret agent goes rogue largely under the direction of a hardscrabble American woman turned Italian countess (the siren of the title), who ends up swaying multiple men into trying to obtain precious artwork for her. This makes Durell a little bit more of a private eye than a spy in this entry, which seems to be the case from time to time, despite having an old Communist nemesis trying to kill him and kidnap his long-suffering girlfriend Dee at critical moments.

A top-flight novel in the series, this one from the early 60s and full of rousing action. One of my favorites to date, despite having picked it up solely for its Italian setting (leading up to a trip to Italy earlier this summer). I nabbed this one for less than a dollar at a used bookstore in Muncie, Indiana.

#28: The Innocent Man by John Grisham

2011-07-25T20:18:00.026-04:00

A washed-up, mentally unstable former pro baseball player ends up framed for an Oklahoma woman's murder in John Grisham's hair-raising nonfiction work The Innocent Man.

I have always liked Grisham but hate to admit that a lot of his books were starting to run together in my mind. But this non-fiction work you almost couldn't make up, populated with blind and drunk lawyers, bungling judges, treacherous jailhouse snitches, bullying cops, dream confessions, last-minute death-row reprieves, and more, in a case that spans decades.

What's more, Grisham sets forth and least two other botched cases from the same time period and geographical area during the course of the story that are almost as chilling as the main story.

Long but absolutely compelling from start to finish, The Innocent Man actually made me rethink some of my beliefs about the death penalty.

I listened to the bulk of this on audio book during a long drive back and forth to Chicago, and the time passed quickly.

#27: Three Seconds by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom

2011-07-18T20:11:00.025-04:00

A deep undercover police informant goes to prison to break up a Polish drug ring, only to get burned by his superiors and have to fight his way out, in Three Seconds, a tough-minded crime drama from Sweden.

Three Seconds is very hard-boiled and well-written and showcases a different voice in crime writing, which is one of the elements I have enjoyed from the recent spate of Scandinavian mysteries that have graced these shores in recent years. Unlike others, the writing team of Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom is less melancholy than some of their counterparts and relies more on burly action.

The down side is that, after a long buildup, the finale relies too heavily on an intricate Rube Goldberg-like sequence of events, coincidences, and lucky breaks that allows the storyline to come to a satisfactory conclusion.

But I was with them most of the way and would recommend this meaty thriller to mystery fans.

I borrowed this from Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#26: The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer

2011-07-11T19:09:00.025-04:00

After a mission turns tragic, a spy in a top-secret branch called "The Department of Tourism" goes into semi-retirement with his new family; but soon various tightly-woven plots bring him back into the fold in Olen Steinhauer's highly enjoyable espionage thriller The Tourist.

In turns darkly funny but eminently credible, The Tourist harkens back to the best of the genre (most especially one of my favorites, Len Deighton) but the storyline is up to the minute in terms of contemporary threats and political scenarios.

Steinhauer writes in a very readable, engaging style while remaining suitably complex for the steady reader of thrillers. Worthwhile right through the final twist.

I would have to say this is one of my favorite novels of the year to date and would recommend it to any general reader. I checked this out on a whim from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana and read it at a breakneck pace.

#25: Assignment Lili Lamaris by Edward S. Aarons

2011-06-20T21:01:00.000-04:00

Superspy Sam Durrell relies on a world-famous ballerina, in deep with gangsters and drugs, to help him smash a spy ring in Edward S. Aarons' Assignment Lili Lamaris, another stalwart entry in the lengthy spy series.

This adventure from the early 60s reads more Mickey Spillane than Ian Fleming as Durrell acts a bit more as a bodyguard/gumshoe figure, getting and giving out beatings at a steady pace and dealing with all sorts of lowlifes, including a crime boss and a sinister, legless doctor.

But the backdrop is largely Rome, which is why I picked this one up after a recent visit there (and, curiously, some of the action takes place in Ostia, where I also had a chance to spend a day). Aarons always has a good sense of place to give interest to his hard-nosed storytelling.

I believe this series is entirely agreeable, and I would rate this outing in the upper half of a steady collection of these I have worked through since rediscovering Aarons a few short years ago.

I nabbed this one for pocket change at a used bookstore in Muncie, Indiana.

#24: Three Stations by Martin Cruz Smith

2011-06-13T21:53:00.000-04:00

Moscow police investigator Arkady Renko, an outsider in his own department, still puts his skills to work trying to solve a young woman's murder and a baby's disappearance in Martin Cruz Smith's Three Stations.

Smith's series has chronicled life in Russia for several decades now, oftentimes with long intervals between novels (though they are starting to come out considerably faster lately). This is a credible, admirable crime series that started with the well-known Gorky Park but has produced many notable entries since then (my favorite is probably Polar Star) that are as much socio-political treatises as they are mysteries.

Wolves Eat Dogs and Stalin's Ghost, the most recent novels in the series, represent Putin-era Russia and might be a jumping-off point for new readers.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana and read it quickly.

#23: He Walked In Her Sleep by Peter Cheyney

2011-06-05T19:53:00.035-04:00

A genial London safecracker confounds rival criminals and the police in equal measure in Peter Cheyney's He Walked In Her Sleep.

My one regret when visiting the book stalls on the South Bank in London was not buying more British pulp paperbacks when I had the chance the first time I walked through the area. But when I went back I was able to snag this lone book before they closed up, from British pulp writer Peter Cheyney (perhaps best known for creating private eye Lemmy Caution).

Despite the lurid cover and noirish title this turned out to be a collection of short stories more in the vein of Leslie Charteris' The Saint. Though expecting something more hard-boiled, it turned out to be a breezy collection of adventures whereas our somewhat tarnished protagonist Alonzo MacTavish and his sidekicks generally do more good than harm in double-crossing bad guys and generally outwitting the police.

This was an easy read over a few days and I hope to find more of Peter Cheyney's writing somewhere.

#22: Nineteen Seventy-Four by David Peace

2011-05-28T15:33:00.021-04:00

Set in an early 70s northern England, a crime reporter tries to unravel some grisly murders that end up taking a psychic and physical toll on him in David Peace's blistering noir Nineteen Seventy-Four.

Peace writes in a raw but realistic voice and the storytelling is dense and electric. Although I enjoyed this immensely, I would only recommend it with reservations as it is very, very mature in situations and content. Peace's novel makes the bleak noir of Jim Thompson and James Ellroy seem like a Hardy Boys mystery.

This is the first of four novels that Peace wrote in this setting, to great acclaim. I have also seen the first movie based on the series, Red Riding 1974, shot for British television and worthwhile in its own right.

I bought this from a neat bookstore in Hampstead while visiting England and consumed it in a single day waiting at the airport.

#21: Tehanu by Ursula K. LeGuin

2011-05-26T13:33:00.016-04:00

A former adventurer, who eventually chose life as a farm wife, finds herself thrust back into the spotlight when she helps a dying wizard and an abused child in Ursula LeGuin's Tehanu.

I recommend Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy to anyone (and just recently hooked my brother up with the first one) not only a great young adult fantasy trilogy but just a great fantasy trilogy in general. This entry was written long after the original series of novels and features older and more reflective versions of the main characters from the earlier works.

Light on action, this book--billed as the last Earthsea novel--is more meditative, focusing a lot on the roles of women in the world. It is a worthwhile adult conclusion to a series mostly read by younger eyes.

I picked this up at a library book sale for a quarter and read it over a few days on a trip to Europe.

#20: City of Illusions by Ursula K. LeGuin

2011-05-19T13:31:00.021-04:00

The Shing have destroyed the League of Worlds, keeping the planets apart and in a semi-barbaric state; until an alien-eyed man with no memory appears on Earth ready to challenge the status quo in Ursula LeGuin's City of Illusions.

This novel is an early entry in what became known as LeGuin's Hainish Cycle, which features some of her best-known works, including The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Nonetheless it really stands on its own, though the main character hails from the planet featured in Planet of Exile.

This is a trippy sci-fi adventure from the 60s with a lot of neat ideas in a straightforward quest-style plot framework. I got this from www.paperbackswap.com in a bound edition with two earlier works in this series, Rocannon's World and Planet of Exile, good reads all.

#19: Arms of Nemesis by Steven Saylor

2011-05-14T21:26:00.012-04:00

In ancient Rome, a detective called The Finder tries to prove the innocence of a runaway slave in Steven Saylor's Arms of Nemesis.

This was given to me by a friend to read on a flight to Rome, and I took it with some reservations, thinking the premise sounded a little cute, a mix of Raymond Chandler and PBS; but I ended up reading it in a single day. It is penned in a tough, credible style, and seems to me to be written with a great attention to detail.

The larger backdrop is the Spartacus slave revolt, and there is also gladiator combat, a tumultuous ride on a slave galley, and a visit to an Oracle, as well as more subtly dramatic and domestic scenes centered around the crime.

Overall I found this quite satisfying and was happy to hear it is part of a larger series of novels about The Finder.

#18: Dexter is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay

2011-05-12T19:25:00.016-04:00

Crime scene analyst by day, serial killer by night, Miami's own Dexter Morgan goes up against a thrill-seeking cannibalistic cult in Jeff Lindsay's latest series entry, Dexter is Delicious.

The first two books in this series were great, the third a strange misfire (with a wrong turn into the supernatural) and the fourth only a slight improvement, so I was really not that eager to pick this one up. However, I can say this is the first I would recommend in a while.

The story is dark and tight, and returns to some of the sharp humor that reminded me of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels. This one also marks the return of Dexter's brother, who figured into a memorable finale at the end of the first book.

Fans of the TV series will find that some people who are alive are dead in the books, and vice versa (with a few only slightly deadish); but both the book series and the television series have their relative merits. Until this entry I would have given the edge to TV, and now I might consider it a draw.

I picked this up on audiobook from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana, read credibly by the author.

#17: Assignment Palermo by Edward S. Aarons

2011-04-28T12:46:00.046-04:00

A secret Italian brotherhood gets into the espionage business, sending hard-nosed secret agent Sam Durrell to Italy and into danger with a motley crew of compatriots (including a circus performer and a crooked jockey) in Edward S. Aarons' Assignment Palermo.

I am becoming an avowed convert to Aarons' long running Sam Durrell spy series since rediscovering the books with adult eyes. This is probably the latest one I have read to date, from 1966. But except for one character calling Durrell "dad" the storytelling is pretty much as square as ever as Durrell arrows his way towards a sinister Commie counterpart he finds lurking behind the scenes.

I found this to be a surprisingly rousing entry in the usually brooding series, heavier on action and gunplay than some others (in the last one I read, for instance, Durrell only polished off one enemy, and that was by pushing a heavy planter over on him).

I really haven't found an entry in this pulp-heavy spy series I didn't like, but I would rate this one near the top of the list to date.

I found this at a used bookstore and chose it to follow the last Assignment because I am making a trip to Italy this summer. I am checking out another of Durrell's adventures in Italy next; apparently a favorite hotspot as I have at least one more that take place in this locale.

#16: Star Wars: Red Harvest by Joe Schreiber

2011-04-26T20:18:00.020-04:00

Zombies get loose at a Sith Academy on an icy planet and need to be beaten back by a mixed bag of Jedi, mercenaries, and droids in Joe Schreiber's horror/sci-fi hybrid Star Wars: Red Harvest.

I had heard good things about Schreiber's first go-round, Star Wars: Death Troopers, and was excited to find this prequel at the public library. This one is a broad, shallow entertainment for adult fans of the Star Wars universe.

On the plus side, it is a fun, energetic read that expands the Star Wars universe into darker corners for fans. On the negative side, it is populated almost exclusively by unpleasant characters, and has many pop culture references that takes the reader out of a galaxy far, far away. Bonus points for zombie tauntaun, minus points for Liam Neeson riff on, off all things, the movie Taken.

I admittedly have not read many of the newer Star Wars books, but in general I found this entry fast-paced and undemanding for fans of science fiction and horror. I borrowed it from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library and knocked it out quickly.

#15: Djibouti by Elmore Leonard

2011-04-12T22:28:00.035-04:00

A documentary film crew get involved with Somalian pirates and, by association, an emerging terrorist plot in Elmore Leonard's Djibouti.

In the 50s and 60s Elmore Leonard solid but today underrated Westerns, then was best known for a very admirable string of crime novels up through the 90s, many with a strong Detroit Rock City flavor. In the 21st Century he has sampled all over the place with various genres and time periods, with some pretty good novels (Tishomingo Blues, The Hot Kid) and some okay ones (Pagan Babies, Road Dogs).

This one has an interesting premise, and Leonard also does some neat things with nonlinear storytelling to change it up a bit. As usual, the novel is populated by Leonard's trademark quirky characters.

But unfortunately it's all talk, talk, talk until a (literally) explosive conclusion. And some of the dialogue clanks a bit (including the young lead character calling movies "pictures," which seems dated).

Although this one is a bit of a mixed bag, Elmore Leonard is still worth reading, well into his 80s.

I listened to a good audiobook version of this, read by Tim Cain, on loan from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana, most of it on a drive back and forth from Chicago.

#14: Up In The Air by Walter Kirn

2011-04-06T22:50:00.039-04:00

A man who fires people for a living is trying to hang on to his unhappy job long enough to pass one million frequent flier miles in Walter Kirn's Up in the Air.

I have always claimed to be an early adopter of Walter Kirn--and find his early work She Needed Me to be especially strong--but I somehow missed this one, along with a lot of other people. It came out around the time of 9/11 and because of its subject matter, centered around airlines and airports and planes, seems to have slipped through the cracks.

Thanks to George Clooney and a film version the novel seems to be returning to its rightful place. But the novel is a totally different animal than the film; less warm-hearted, and with a surprisingly unreliable narrator.

Most of the novel takes place in what Kirn calls Air World, the insulated world of the frequent flier that has its own rules and regulations. And our flawed protagonist is constantly derailed in his attempts to cross that million-mile plateau by family issues, complicated lovers, work problems and the shadow of head-hunting firm that seems to be dogging his steps.

I found Up in the Air to by a great read, enhanced by a solid audiobook presentation by. Sean Runnette. The book and movie are quite different beasts, but both are rewarding in their own ways. Recommended.

I checked this out from Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana, and consumed it quickly.

#13: Look At Me by Jennifer Egan

2011-04-03T16:49:00.040-04:00

A supermodel has a life-altering car wreck that ends up with her face being rebuilt, though unrecognizable; the results impact not only her but a teenage girl from her hometown, the supermodel's childhood friend, a downtrodden private eye, a mysterious figure known as Z and others in Jennifer Egan's genre pretzel of a novel, Look At Me.

Egan's novel The Keep was one of my favorite reads of recent years. I didn't like this one quite as much, but it is very interesting throughout, with plenty of surprises and no linear paths to follow. There are also lots of unique characters and very complicated characterizations. As in the last one I read, I thought the ending sort of ran out of steam, but I genuinely could not guess what was coming next; and as I read a lot of books, that means something.

Despite some flaws, I am beginning to think that Jennifer Egan is becoming one of my favorite new writers, almost entirely based on her unique storytelling alone.

I bought this for my beloved Kindle and read it at a steady pace.

#12: Frankenstein Lives Again! by Donald F. Glut

2011-03-27T20:13:00.054-04:00

Once again a scientist decides to, rather unwisely, resurrect the Frankenstein Monster (with expected results) in Donald F. Glut's Frankenstein Lives Again!, the first in a series of new adventures originally released in the late 60s and 70s.

Glut definitely knows his Frankenstein mythos, but also shows a fondness for Hammer horror films and Marvel comics of that era (most notably Tomb of Dracula). Naturally there's a lantern-jawed hero, a pretty and capable but overlooked assistant, and a bunch of villagers quick to pick up the torches and storm up to the castle.

On the other hand, the Monster spends at least half of the novel frozen in a block of ice (and tended to by a band of Eskimos who make the Lone Ranger's Tonto seem like a finely nuanced portrayal of Native American life) and pretty much follows the path you would expect, comfortable but familiar ground for fans of the genre. There's also a rather thin storyline featuring a lecherous, psychic circus master of some sort with a hulking assistant (of course) that get dispatched rather quickly in the latter part of the book.

But if you liked hearing Gene Colan and Peter Cushing name-checked in this review, this is a good read for you. For my part I liked it well enough to look for the second in the series.

My pal Bill Cunningham sent this to me for my beloved Kindle and I read it at a good clip.

#11: Assignment Girl in the Gondola by Edward S. Aarons

2011-03-23T22:38:00.035-04:00

Agent Sam Durell fights enemies on all fronts as China stands ready to launch a nuclear holocaust in Edward S. Aaron's Assignment Girl in the Gondola, a solid entry in the lengthy and underrated spy series.

This one from the early 60s has the Red Chinese sneaking nuclear missiles into Albania, triggering the involvement of various spy agencies including Durell's hated Soviet counterpart (who has a trademark knife blow that is quickly felling those around Durell). Although many of the early Aarons novels seem claustrophobic to me, this one takes place on a bigger stage, with Durell jetting between Greece and Italy and involving all kinds of international politics and intrigue.

Although that plot element strays away from Aarons' norm, Durell still has the curious ability to find women who want to erase a recent trauma with a strenuous night of lovemaking; in this novel, not one but two like-minded partners.

I found this at a used bookstore and chose it to read next because I will be visiting Italy in a few months. However, this one mostly takes place in Greece; but I wasn't too put out as I found it to be a really good novel in the series.

I have discovered Aarons in just the last year or two and can't recommend the series highly enough to pulp fans, having yet to stumble on a lemon.

#10: Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

2011-03-13T11:24:00.026-04:00

A doctor in a chaotic hospital ends up with even more stress than usual when he is outed as a former hitman hiding in the Witness Protection Program in Josh Bazell's darkly comic debut Beat the Reaper.

Beat the Reaper is fairly outlandish, penned in a cinematic style, and is quite funny throughout (and rather oddly provides footnotes for the medical terminology and other asides). It does suffer a bit from a somewhat rushed, slam-bang ending which seems to segue into a sequel. It is written in a pretty unique voice (with undertones of other mafia and hospital stories) with lots of temporal distortion (and roller-coaster reveals) and is a fast, fun read.

I have a doctor friend who I immediately thought would like to read it next, though three or four other friends come to mind as well. I guess that means I am recommending this for those who would like a light, entertaining read.

This novel had a lot of buzz so I nabbed it in paperback when Amazon had it on sale, read it quickly, and am eager to pass it on.

#9: Gasping for Airtime by Jay Mohr

2011-02-28T21:16:00.032-05:00

Comedian Jay Mohr spent two tumultuous years on "Saturday Night Live" and lets it all hang out in Gasping for Airtime.

Like a lot of people, I suspect, I don't remember Mohr being on the program, but part of that might have been that it was one of those up-and-down periods when I wasn't watching SNL regularly. But you don't have to have been a regular viewer during this time period to appreciate his vivid depictions of cutthroat backstage politics and "kill or be killed" colleagues, as well as his unexpurgated views on various celebrities that passed through the doors.

Mohr doesn't let himself off the hook much either and displays his own shortcomings, warts and all.

Curiously, I came across this book shortly after reading The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman, which covers a lot of the same period in SNL history with equally hair-raising frankness. Both books are also pretty funny and fairly slight.

I borrowed this from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond Indiana and found it very readable. Enjoyable for fans of "Saturday Night Live" especially.

#8: The Man Who Japed by Philip K. Dick

2011-02-22T22:48:00.022-05:00

In a post-apocalyptic future, the world has come under the rule of a rigid, moralistic system of rules and regulations; but a man who produces morality plays for television begins to act out in interesting ways in Philip K. Dick's The Man Who Japed.

This is an early, minor work of Dick's from the late 1950s, but features most of his long-running themes, including flailing marriages, dead-end jobs, and a young woman who galvanizes the main character into action. But although it is far more straightforward (and thus less psychedelic) than his later works, I still found it enjoyable.

I am a huge fan of Philip K. Dick and, knowing that his output is finite, have been doling out reading his books a little at a time even as I am compelled to finish them all at one go. I enjoyed this one and believe fans would as well.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond Indiana and read it at a good clip.

#7: The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte

2011-02-21T22:42:00.022-05:00

A former war photographer has isolated himself in a lighthouse on the Spanish coast, painting a giant mural; soon he is joined by a former soldier who was the subject of one of his most famous photographs and now wants to kill him. Their conversations about life, death, war, art and love make up the center of Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Painter of Battles.

Although the description makes it sound as if the novel has the barest wisp of a plot, it is a dense, cerebral novel with rewards for the patient (including a surprising, chilling ending). I am more familiar with Perez-Reverte as the author of the swashbuckling Captain Alatriste series and the memorable, whacked-out The Club Dumas (filmed as The Ninth Gate). This book is a departure from what I have read into a more literary bent but is quite a good read.

I borrowed this from my wife to read along with a class she is teaching and enjoyed it tremendously. Recommended.

#6: The Skeleton Coast Contract by Philip Atlee

2011-02-17T21:34:00.029-05:00

Joe Gall, The Nullifier, heads off to Africa to keep a priceless stash of diamonds from Commie hands in Philip Atlee's The Skeleton Coast Contract.

I have read a handful of Atlee's Joe Gall books, featuring a swinging, politically incorrect spy protecting America's interests from the Red Menace. Like Edward Aarons, Atlee was a prolific paperback writer who should probably receive more attention by contemporary readers. Unlike Aarons, Atlee's Joe Gall is a little funnier and full of opinions that politely can be called a product of their time.

The Skeleton Coast Contract reads a bit more like a Men's Adventure style book than some of the other entries, with Gall left for dead in the desert and later buried up to his neck and set upon by flesh-eating ants (though he doesn't wander so far afield that he forgets to leave time for bedding and boozing).

I had about tapped out my Joe Gall collection when I found a surprising handful at a used bookstore. This entry is from the early 60s, from where I have mined some fresher Atlee novels, and I enjoyed this one quite a bit and read it quickly.

#5: The Bedwetter by Sarah Silverman

2011-02-16T20:30:00.041-05:00

Comedian Sarah Silverman pens The Bedwetter, a slight, scattershot autobiography full of her expected gross-out humor.

I have enjoyed Sarah Silverman's television show and was curious what she would have to say in an autobiography penned not halfway through her expected life. I liked the sections about her career, including a very brief stint on Saturday Night Live and the "behind the scenes" of her show, as well as a long piece on her upbringing as a lone Jew among the blondes of New Hampshire.

I could have done without all of the attempts to shock and felt that, in curious contrast, despite appearances to the contrary the book was not nearly as frank as I expected (as an example, her parents divorce abruptly with no commentary, and her love life is skimmed over). She spends a lot of time defending the various controversies she has been a part of, seeming at times remarkably thin-skinned considering her material.

I think I enjoyed the book more because I listened to the audiobook version, read by Silverman herself, which I felt lended more interest. The Bedwetter was an enjoyable enough read but will undoubtedly be more warmly welcomed by fans.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond Indiana and consumed it quickly.

#4: The Devil's Star by Joe Nesbo

2011-02-04T19:22:00.053-05:00

Harry Hole is a brilliant cop who fights alcoholism and other personal demons; Tom Waaler is his partner, the ace detective in the Oslo police force. But Hole also believes Waaler is the murderous crime lord Prince, although nobody else believes him. In a blazing Norwegian summer, these two cops must team up to find a serial killer in Jo Nesbo's The Devil's Star.

Nesbo's first Harry Hole novel translated into English, The Redbreast, is one of my favorites from the large spate of Scandinavian mysteries that have landed on these shores in recent years. I thought the second in the series, Nemesis, was good but not up to the first one; but The Devil's Star is close, a dark, delirious crime drama chock full of odd characters and colorful writing. I think Nesbo compares favorably to one of my other must-read crime novelists, Michael Connelly, although Nesbo does not have the body of work yet.

For better or worse, Nesbo writes in a more American style with plenty of action, and doesn't often dwell in the gloom and doom of his Scandinavian brethren. Nesbo also injects a lot of quirky humor, a welcome respite from these frequently wintry novels.

I was pleased to find Nesbo's latest at the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana and read it at a good clip over several snowed-in days. Recommended.

#3: Assignment Sulu Sea by Edward S. Aarons

2011-01-29T23:11:00.033-05:00

Sam Durrell goes hunting for a missing American sub in Assignment Sulu Sea, a 1964 entry in Edward S. Aaron's stalwart "Assignment" spy series.

Sulu Sea is a sober adventure set against a colorful background as Durrell hops islands throughout the Pacific, facing off against a Chinese warlord and getting involved in regional political intrigue along the way. Durrell is so focused on making sure the nuclear sub doesn't fall into Red Chinese hands that he doesn't even bed the several beauties that cross his path, a change from his usual method of operation. Durrell also has a crisis of conscience at the end that speaks to the Cold War fears of the time.

Otherwise it's business as usual for Durrell, and although this wasn't my favorite of the batch of these I have read, it is still a solid outing and comparable to many better-known authors and titles of the era.

I snagged a bunch of these off of ebay some time ago and have worked through them steadily.

#2: Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indridason

2011-01-27T22:30:00.028-05:00

Morose Reykjavik cop Erlendur becomes fascinated with a depressed woman's suicide as tragedies in his own past resonate, ending with him taking up an unofficial investigation that uncovers more family trauma in Arnaldur Indridason's Hypothermia, part of his long-running police procedural series set in Iceland.

This is one of my favorite authors in the spate of gloomy Scandinavian imports that have reached these shores in recent years. Each novel features great characters that grow and change along with complex crime drama. The philosophical underpinnings of most of the mystery novels from Scandinavia offer a welcome change of pace from American crime fare. And it's not often you see a U.S. detective/protagonist tuck into a boiled sheep's head in jam.

The dead of winter probably wasn't the ideal time to pick up Indridason's latest, but when I see the newest one on the shelf I can't resist. This series starts with Jar City, recently made into a movie, and all entries so far come recommended. I thought this one was perhaps the best yet.

I borrowed this book from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana, and read it at a good clip.

#1: Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan

2011-01-02T12:21:00.024-05:00

I started 2011 with a book I wasn't quite finished with in 2010, and though I wanted to end with a bang I will start with one instead.

Prince of Thieves is a tough crime novel featuring a recovering alcoholic trying to give up his working-class Boston neighborhood and all its dangerous attractions, including a lucrative side job leading a bank robbery gang. When he is lovestruck by a bank teller during a heist, all the threads start to come unraveled as the novel rockets to a noirish finale.

I picked this one up from www.paperbackswap.com when I heard about The Town, the Ben Affleck film based on the book, and had an eagerness to consume both. I could quickly see why Affleck wanted to adapt the book as it features a lot of his sensibilities (as seen in Good Will Hunting and other places). The movie is decent, but the novel is far richer as is often the case (and diverges significantly from the movie in critical places).

I had been looking for more Chuck Hogan since reading The Strain, his collaboration with Guillermo Del Toro, and enjoyed this quite a bit, recommending it to several other readers.

Favorite Reads 2008-2010

2010-12-31T11:32:00.003-05:00

Somehow I have read over 150 books in the last three years. As it may be my last serious attempt to read 50 books a year (which takes a lot more concentration than you might think), here is my highly subjective list of my favorites since 2008:

Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

The City and The City by China Mieville

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo

The Murderer Vine by Shepard Rifkin

54 Books in 2010

2010-12-31T11:10:00.002-05:00

For three years running I have managed to make my goal of reading 50 books a year; so I guess I have that one knocked down and perhaps it's time to try some new challenge (although I will continue to keep counting on this blog). I did vow to read a little smarter this year, though I still read a mountain of trash and pulp. But I read some really good books, and here are my favorites:

1. The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno

2. The Keep by Jennifer Egan

3. The City and The City by China Mieville

4. Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey

5. The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

6. Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks

7. Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

8. Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick

9. Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem

10. The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King

As always, happy reading!

#54: Trap for Buchanan by Jonas Ward

2010-12-23T20:45:00.035-05:00

Buchanan, a drifter heading towards San Francisco, ends up helping an old friend protect his mine from crooks, owlhoots, Mexican bandits, Indians, and other challengers in Jonas Ward's Trap for Buchanan.

This was another book featuring an author I had never heard of that I nabbed in a big handful from a flea market and have worked through sporadically. Jonas Ward was a pseudonym used by a handful of writers in the 60s and 70s in westerns featuring the honorable cowpoke. There was also a good movie starring Randolph Scott as the lantern-jawed Buchanan. Trap for Buchanan was apparently written by William R. Cox, who seemed to have penned the lion's share of the series.

It is a nicely sturdy western with a hero who doesn't like fighting but, naturally, can only be pushed so far before fighting back. Although not outstanding, it is certainly more serviceable than many Westerns and I will look for more by the phantom Jonas Ward.

#53: The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King

2010-12-21T21:44:00.025-05:00

An evil wizard called Flagg subverts the noble Prince Peter and installs a puppet in his place, setting sinister plans in motion in Stephen King's fantasy novel The Eyes of the Dragon.

This unusual departure for horror master King was one I somehow missed when it came out in the 80s. I am glad I found it as an audio book read by Bronson Pinchot, quickly becoming one of my favorite audio book readers. It is a very credible fantasy, probably most reminiscent of William Goldman's The Princess Bride, but enjoyable in its own right. Both share a bright, funny narration that carries the story along.

For fans of King's larger body of work, there are definitely threads and themes that appear or re-appear in other novels, probably most notably The Stand and The Dark Tower series.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana, and enjoyed it thoroughly.

#52: The Reversal by Michael Connelly

2010-12-19T18:30:00.028-05:00

DNA evidence seems to spring a child-killer from prison after many years, but defense attorney Mickey Haller jumps over to the prosecution to ensure that doesn't come to pass in Michael Connelly's The Reversal.

Connelly is perhaps best known for his novels featuring L.A. police detective Harry Bosch, in my mind one of the milestone mystery series of the late 20th Century. He has sometimes branched out to feature other characters in Bosch's world, and this is I think the third featuring Haller. At the end of the last novel Haller and Bosch were revealed to have a family relationship that ties the two characters closer together.

Connelly is equally adept at writing straight-up courtroom drama, and this one moves at a quick pace with solid plotting. Fans of Connelly will be satisfied to see appearances from Harry Bosch, FBI profiler Rachel Walling, and other characters seen previously.

I checked this one out from the Farmland Public Library in Farmland, Indiana and would have consumed it in a single day if I had a day free to do so.

#51: Time to Prey by Frank Kane

2010-11-17T20:59:00.034-05:00

New York P.I. Johnny Liddell meets a damsel in distress at a seedy bar; later she turns up dead, and when Liddell finds out she was actually an undercover Treasury agent, he plots vengeance in Frank Kane's Time to Prey.

Liddell is your typical wiseacre shamus with a loving secretary and a world-weary cop pal with the usual yeggs set in opposition. What surprised me was how doggedly Liddell set about framing various bad guys without the benefit of hard evidence or due process, setting in motion a number of murders and at least one suicide, with hardly a flicker of conscience.

Frank Kane and his detective creation had a long run in their day (this entry is from the early 60s), but I had never heard of either of them until I found this paperback at a flea market for fifty cents and got interested in its pulp cover. Frank Kane's writing was interesting enough to keep an eye out for more.

#50: Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks

2010-11-12T22:00:00.031-05:00

Bone is a teen runaway from an abusive home, a low-level drug dealer, an aspiring gang member, a small-time criminal and wannabe Rastafarian in Russell Banks' Catcher in the Rye for the contemporary set, Rule of the Bone.

Despite the harrowing description, Banks' Bone comes to life through an often humorous first-person narrative and energetic prose. Although I didn't always think the tone of Bone's voice was right for a teenage boy, and the narrrative goes up and down some steep inclines at times, I really enjoyed the book and was glad that I finished my 50 Books In 2010 Challenge on such a strong note.

Russell Banks is a popular author among a lot of people I know but this is the first time I have dipped into one of this works. I will definitely be on the prowl for more in 2011.

I picked this up at a student club book sale at Indiana University East at goodbye prices for my wife but ended up reading it rather quickly myself first. I recommended it to her and will to others.

#49: Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth

2010-10-27T22:49:00.005-04:00

Since the Civil War, the President of the United States has had a vampire to do his bidding, linked to the office by a voodoo curse; in the modern era, the president's vampire takes on the immortal Doctor Frankenstein in Christopher Farnsworth's Blood Oath.

Rollicking, cinematic-style adventure is an enjoyable outing in what appears to be the first in a series from Farnsworth. Undemanding as both a horror novel and a thriller but full of knowing elements for fans of both.

I picked this audio book up on a whim and ended up liking it. I believe it was helped significantly by a very good reading by, of all people, Bronson Pinchot.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Library and consumed it quickly.

#48: Fake I.D. by Jason Starr

2010-10-12T20:38:00.036-04:00

A bouncer with a minor acting career, a middling gambling addiction, and a major sociopathic streak will do anything to buy a racehorse in Jason Starr's contemporary noir Fake I.D.

Fake I.D. is part of the highly admirable Hard Case Crime line, a mix of lost pulp novels alongside newer works in the same vein. Jason Starr's work is a credible addition, sort of a Jim Thompson lite. Like many Thompson protagonists, Starr's flawed narrator continues to unravel more and more, despite the banal narration, to a chilling finale.

I had never read Jason Starr but will seek out more of his work. I thought this book was comparable to two of my favorite old-school flavored modern noirs, Scott Smith's A Simple Plan and Robert Ward's Four Kinds of Rain; good company indeed.
Had I had a single day to read this, undoubtedly I would have read it straight through.

I nabbed this off of www.paperbackswap.com and read it quickly.

#47: The Killers by Peter McCurtin

2010-09-30T19:46:00.039-04:00

Drifter Carmody, who drifts just this side of the law, ends up being talked into helping out his cousin as sheriff of a small town in the Old West; but he takes up law enforcement at an untimely moment, as a bandit gang and a murderous backwoods family have the town in its crosshairs.

Carmody was a Western series character of Peter McCurtin, a very busy pulp scribe of the 60s-80s and beyond who many speculated was actually a pseudonymous legion of writers. Apparently he was a real person after all, and if this outing is any indication he was also a talented writer.

McCurtin's Carmody is a bit more tongue in cheek than the average Western hero, and McCurtin also writes in the first person, less common in Westerns than, for instance, the private eye genre. Overall the various elements made The Killers a slight cut above.

I got a mixed batch of 50-cent paperbacks at a flea market which included a lot of authors I had not heard of before, including McCurtin, and I'm always eager to find new writers and stories. I also found another McCurtin Western series character, Sundance, which I am sure I will dig into before long.

#46: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

2010-09-21T00:56:00.037-04:00

A teen girl is torn between two brothers, even as zombies strain at the fences to tear them apart, in Carrie Ryan's Young Adult horror novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth.

I picked this up as a recommendation after enjoying Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games novels. Ryan's story also features a post-apocalyptic setting, this time a few generations after a zombie uprising, where the residents of a small town deep in the forest now believe they are the last living humans on Earth. Their village is surrounded by a lot of chain link fence that has to be constantly maintained to keep the dead at bay.

A young girl remembers her mother talking about the ocean, and yearns to set out on what seems to be a doomed quest. In the meantime, she deals with the various heatings and coolings between herself and the brothers as well as herself and various family members.

A curious mix of teen romance and gruesome horror, sort of a version of Lois Lowry's The Giver as directed by George Romero. It's hard to recommend for those who like a few chills with their romance, as there are some pretty grisly sequences (including a pregnant zombie and a baby zombie, of all unpalatable things), but it's even harder to recommend it to gorehounds as the teen pines away even as civilization gets torn down around her.

An interesting read, and not without its merits for the careful reader.

I picked this up with my Books A Million gift card I got for my birthday and read it at a steady pace.

#45: Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey

2010-09-15T22:54:00.052-04:00

Ghana detective Darko Dawson from the Accra city police force heads for the countryside to look into the strange death of a medical worker in Kwei Quartey's debut Wife of the Gods.

Quartey's first novel has been compared to Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, but I think they are worlds apart. Quartey writes straight-up crime drama, putting Dawson on the street with nothing but a cricket bat, a bag of weed, and some anger management issues between him and the criminal element.

The setting of Ghana sets the mystery apart from other crime novels as well, as Dawson contends with witchcraft and tribal beliefs as he tries to solve the killing using contemporary methods. All the while he also struggles with buried family secrets that begin to surface as parallels between the recent murder and the long-ago disappearance of Dawson's mother surfaces.

I picked up this audiobook from Morrison-Reeves Public Library without having heard of the book or the author and enjoyed it tremendously. I will be on the lookout for Kwei Quartey's second novel.

#44: Fargo by John Benteen

2010-09-14T00:54:00.042-04:00

Fargo is a mercenary for hire who signs up for a seeming suicide mission bringing a load of silver out of revolution-torn Mexico in Fargo, the first in a series by prolific, pseudonymous scribe John Benteen.

Not long ago I read The Trail Ends in Hell by Benteen, aka Ben Haas, a sturdy little Western that interested me in finding more of his writing. However, despite Fargo's trappings I would say it was more Men's Adventure than Western, not only in its time period (early 20th century) and focus on action, but also in its casual handling of women and fetish-like attachment to weapons.

Benteen again writes a solid story, and I must not have been the only one that thought so as the Fargo series went on for some time throughout the 60s and 70s. I was able to get a handful at a flea market and I am sure I will jump on another one before long.

#43: The Super Barbarians by John Brunner

2010-08-28T00:09:00.028-04:00

In the far-flung future, Earthmen have been subjugated by a technically advanced, but culturally backward, alien race. Through playing on the aliens' superstitions--and their unexpected coffee addictions--humans begin to get the upper hand again in John Brunner's light, tight space opera The Super Barbarians.

Brunner was a hugely prolific and popular sci-fi author in the 60s and 70s, but I find his writing kind of mixed and have picked up and put down a lot of his books over the years. I stuck with this one because it didn't take itself too seriously and had a brisk, tidy plot.

This one caught my fancy after seeing it on a flea market goodbye shelf and I read it at a good pace. I continue to keep a lookout for John Brunner's work.

#42: Known to Evil by Walter Mosley

2010-08-21T00:08:00.035-04:00

New York private eye Leonid McGill is asked by a well-connected politico to look into the whereabouts of a young beauty, unleashing a murderous chain of events in Walter Mosley's Known to Evil.

This is the second McGill mystery in a new series Mosley began recently. Mosley's Easy Rawlins books, which takes a sort-of detective through life in L.A. from post World War II to post Watts riots and beyond, is one of my favorite contemporary mystery series and I believe will be remembered as one of the greats of the late 20th century. I think Mosley is trying to do the same for New York, in a contemporary setting, with milder results.

McGill is a former very crooked P.I. who is somewhat bent back straight, with all the complications that ensue from that situation. His home life, with an unfaithful wife and three kids with uncertain paternity, also weighs on his mind. These main themes, and several other subplots, make for an overly dense narrative with a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion.

But a moderately successful Mosley novel is always above the average read, so I would recommend it for fans.

I listened to a very good audio book version of this, read by Mirron Willis, on loan from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#41: Red Fury by George G. Gilman

2010-08-18T01:04:00.028-04:00

Gun-for-hire Edge, a drifter and loner with his own fractured moral code, finds himself in the middle of a bloody feud between a small town and some only slightly settled Indians in George G. Gilman's Red Fury.

I have been reading a lot of Gold Medal paperbacks from the 60s and 70s and frequently saw Gilman's Edge series, billed as "the most violent Westerns in print," advertised in the back. I found a handful at a flea market and grabbed this one at random. This volume was from deep in the series and one can only surmise features an older, more reflective Edge, as it was not so much violent as rather unpleasant. There are lots of murders, rapes, some incest and torture, and a notable scene where Edge holds a straight razor to a pregnant woman's stomach to escape.

A little googling shows that Gilman has a legion of fans, but I found his work a curiosity; the result of a British writer penning stories of the American West after apparently watching a lot of Italian Western films. On the covers Edge looks like Charles Bronson, and on the inside pages has the mean streak of Lee Van Cleef and the dry wit of Clint Eastwood. In fact each chapter strains to end, rather painfully at times, on some sort of pun or quip, as odd a conceit as I've seen.

I feel I should give Edge another try but won't be rushing back into my swap meet stash anytime soon.

#40: The Keep by Jennifer Egan

2010-08-16T00:03:00.000-04:00

Genuinely creepy-crawly story-within-a-story features a pair of cousins working together (and sometimes against each other) in restoring an eerie, remote Eastern European castle; meanwhile, a prisoner attends a creative writing class while doing time and workshops a story about two cousins restoring an old castle, intriguing his troubled teacher.

Jennifer Egan's The Keep is an enjoyable, offbeat read that I was pleasantly surprised to find. I had not heard of Jennifer Egan before a friend recommended this one. I nabbed it off of www.paperbackswap.com and read it at a good clip. Egan writes in an interesting voice and featured plenty of neat twists and turns with a chilling undertone throughout.

Unfortunately I thought the ending unraveled a bit, but I was completely sold on it for nine-tenths of the way through, and immediately went looking for more of Egan's work. Recommended.

#39: Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem

2010-08-07T23:03:00.000-04:00

In a post-apocalyptic future, a loner called Chaos, whose dreams seem to be able to influence events, takes off for California to see what remains of the world in Jonathan Lethem's Amnesia Moon.

Jonathan Lethem wrote the introduction for the Library of America's worthy collection of Philip K. Dick's writings, and after reading this early work from Lethem it is easy to understand why. Lethem definitely pays tribute to Dick in this piece, as he did in another early work I read previously, Gun with Occasional Music. To me, it isn't until Motherless Brooklyn and his masterpiece (in my mind, to date) Fortress of Solitude that Lethem really gains his own voice.

But Amnesia Moon is enjoyable in its own right, and is enjoyable for sci-fi fans and/or Lethem completests. I nabbed this off of www.paperbackswap.com.

#38: The City and The City by China Mieville

2010-07-17T01:49:00.000-04:00

A cop in the city-state of Beszel tries to solve the murder of a woman from the neighboring city-state of Ul Quoma, while facing political complications and his own inner demons, in China Mieville's ultra-strange science fiction/noir hybrid The City and The City.

Despite the brief summary, Mieville's work is hard to explain. Beszel is a fading Eastern European-style city, whereas Ul Quoma is a rising military dictatorship experimenting with democracy; guarding the borders between the two cities is a mysterious policing group called The Breach. But both cities occupy the same geographical space, differentiating philosophically by citizens "unseeing" each other and the other part of the city.

It's as unique a chunk of sci-fi as I have read (and I read a lot of Philip Dick, Ursula LeGuin, and Samuel R. Delany); sort of what might happen if Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko went to visit Delany's Dhalgren.

For those willing to be patient, and take a chance on something quite unique, this comes recommended.

I actually took a recommendation on this one myself from my pal Troy, and checked it out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#37: Assignment Manchurian Doll by Edward S. Aarons

2010-07-15T21:48:00.000-04:00

In the heat of the Cold War, an old enemy of U.S. spy Sam Durell has decided he will only defect across the Iron Curtain to him, sending Durell to Japan and then "Red China" while double- and triple-crossing friends and enemies stalk his every move in Edward S. Aarons' Assignment Manchurian Doll.

Longtime readers of this blog know that I have been rediscovering and enjoying Aarons' espionage novels of the 50s and 60s after snagging a big stack on ebay some time ago. Most of the books I have read to date take place in the more sober late 50s, with plenty of rain-slick Washington streets, but this entry is square in the middle of the freewheeling 60s. There is a lot more sex and sadism than the ones I had read prior, with some oversized villains of the flavor Ian Fleming favored at the time.

For the curious, the "Manchurian Doll" of the title is a sexy Stalinist who loves Durell's enemy and has to team up with Uncle Sam's finest to defeat a greater foe.

Another good entry in the long-running Gold Medal series.

#36: I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells

2010-07-13T21:47:00.000-04:00

A teen in a quiet town lives above a funeral parlor with his mom, has a dorky best friend, and pines for an unattainable girl; he also tries to quell the murderous impulses within him, finding some solace in stalking a demonic killer that suddenly surfaces in town in Dan Wells' debut I Am Not A Serial Killer.

Wells can't avoid drawing parallels to both the novels and television series Dexter, about a Miami serial killer who focuses on dispatching only those that deserve it. Jeff Lindsay's series has also taken a turn towards the supernatural, veering off significantly from the television series (a strange plot twist the TV series has avoided to its benefit, in my opinion). Fans of either the series of books or TV episodes will find much to enjoy here.

I have become a bit lukewarm on the Dexter books and found myself on the same uneasy footing with this novel. Most curiously, the protagonist is shown to be very unlikable while the demon in human guise is portrayed fairly sympathetically. I also think the narrator of the audiobook version that I listened to was ill-suited to the material, which may have hampered my enjoyment.

That being said, I understand that this is the beginning of a trilogy, and am interested enough to know what happens next.

I listened to this via an audiobook checked out from Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#35: The Trail Ends In Hell by John Benteen

2010-07-13T00:45:00.000-04:00

A trail boss takes his cattle to a town to sell them off, only to find the town overrun by crooks and shysters; he then takes it upon himself to clean up the place, knowing it is the only way he is going to be able to get a good price on his herd. The Trail Ends in Hell is a burly western by John Benteen, the psuedonym for busy pulp writer Ben Haas.

I like to read an old western from time to time to change things up and found that I really enjoyed this one. It is from that late 60s-early 70s era when westerns began to drop the straight-laced, singing cowboy-style persona and reflect more the violent "spaghetti western" stylings of the time.

Benteen presents a particularly hard-nosed story here, though our stubborn trail boss protagonist does, in old-time western fashion, manage to tame down both the town and a hot-blooded rancher's daughter at the same time.

I enjoyed this read quite a bit and devoured it quickly. I bought this paperback for a dollar at a flea market and will definitely go on the prowl for more John Benteen/Ben Haas.

#34: Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk

2010-06-24T23:57:00.000-04:00

A fading star in moviedom's Silver Age is tended to by her faithful assistant, who has to go to extremes to keep the wolves from her door in Chuck Palahniuk's Hollywood send-up Tell-All.

Although I intentionally avoided Palahniuk for a number of years after hearing others talk about his rather disturbing novels (Fight Club notable among them), I finally gave him a go and actually found him to be a very accomplished, interesting writer--though pretty much all of his novels I have read to date have to be approached with caution and an open mind.

That being said, I was probably more shocked by this book than any of the others of his I have read. It is sort of a breezy, outlandishly plotted satire with little of the dark material of his typical work. I honestly don't know who Palahniuk wrote this novel for; it surely will not satisfy his fans, and the casual reader who might be interested in the lighter fare would be reluctant to pick it up. Basically it's a good fit for someone who can stomach Palahniuk's darker turns, but has a deep love for classic cinema (everyone from Thelma Ritter to John Agar to Bonita Granville are name-checked, and Lillian Hellman plays a critical role). So I think Chuck, me, and some guys I took film classes with at Ball State are its primary audience.

That being said, I did enjoy the novel, which I heard via a good audiobook version read by Hillary Huber. I checked it out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#33: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

2010-06-23T22:19:00.000-04:00

Arnold Spirit is a Spokane Indian who tries to improve his fortunes by leaving his school on the reservation and going to a white high school a short distance away, but a world apart, in Sherman Alexie's comedic and tragic Young Adult novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

Despite the Young Adult label Alexie remains in full effect here, in all his rage and glory, unflinching in his portrayal of "the rez" but also leavening the proceedings with genuine humor. The novel seems to be at least somewhat autobiographical but even more so rings true as a coming of age story.

Even though the novel is accompanied with some neat cartooning throughout, the storytelling is definitely for more sophisticated readers; but I would recommend this to anyone middle school age on into adulthood. It stands very well alongside Alexie's other works.

I have been a big fan of Sherman Alexie for a while but did not know about this YA novel. I picked it up because I have been reading along with a YA fiction class my daughter is taking this summer at college.

I traded for this on www.paperbackswap.com and read it quickly, then donated it to my daughter for the little library she hopes to have in her own classroom one day. Recommended.

#32: Dealing Out Death by W.T. Ballard

2010-06-19T22:19:00.000-04:00

Bill Lennox is a "troubleshooter" for a big movie studio back in Hollywood's golden era; in his latest case, he tries to help a starlet out of a jam, only to get in deeper himself, in W.T. Ballard's Dealing Out Death.

Lennox ends up following the starlet to Vegas and deals with the gumshoe's general supply of smart-aleck mobsters, angry cops, and willing dames.

I was not aware that W.T. Ballard was a prolific mystery and western writer of the pulp era, or that Bill Lennox was one of his more well-known characters, when I spent 99 cents on this one for my beloved Kindle. But I enjoyed this pretty undemanding read and read it over a day or two.

#31: Assignment Mara Tirana by Edward S. Aarons

2010-06-17T22:16:00.000-04:00

Sam Durrell, deep in the shadowy world of espionage in the cold war '60s, has said goodbye to his longtime girlfriend Diedre; a year later, she is set to marry America's first astronaut, Adam Stepanic, who has the misfortune of veering off course on his return trip from orbit and landing behind Communist lines. It's up to Durrell to go behind the Iron Curtain and rescue him in Assignment Mara Tirana, an admirable entry in Edward S. Aarons' long-running spy series.

I have been chewing through a big stack of these Sam Durrell novels that I snagged off of ebay some time ago and have yet to find a lemon. In fact I am willing to say that the series, from what I have read, is the equal to some more well-regarded series of the time period, including Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm and even Ian Fleming's Bond.

This entry is a bit different from the norm as it tells a parallel story, following the astronaut's nerve-wracking attempt to escape from the Eastern Bloc while Durrell closes in on him from the other side. The Mara Tirana of the title is a fiery woman who ends up grudgingly helping the astronaut while various complications impede Durrell's progress, but all ends up rather neat in the end.

I read this in a single day while staying at a cabin at New Harmonie State Park. A good entry in the series, and I am eager to dive into another.

#30: The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno

2010-06-16T22:12:00.000-04:00

A young boy, adept at solving mysteries, teams up with his sister and a boyhood chum to unravel the town's crimes. After his sister's suicide, the boy is institutionalized, emerging as an adult to try and solve the greatest mystery of his life in Joe Meno's The Boy Detective Fails.

I heard Joe Meno read from his work during a public reading at the Ropewalk Writer's Workshop in New Harmony Indiana. I bought this book that night and read it straight through the next day while staying in the state park nearby. The following day I spend about four hours breaking the numerous codes throughout, including one that can be deciphered with a decoder ring you can cut out of the back of the book.

This was an offbeat read to say the least, reminiscent of book series from my youth like "Encyclopedia Brown" but with a distinctive postmodern edge, verging on the hallucinatory. I really enjoyed Meno's style as well as picking out the many pop culture references throughout. The codebreaking added an unusual element I had not seen in other work.

A happy surprise from an author I was unfamiliar with and will seek out going forward. Recommended.

#29: Hunt Beyond the Frozen Fire by Gabriel Hunt and Christa Faust

2010-06-15T01:12:00.000-04:00

World adventurer Gabriel Hunt heads to the South Pole to find the missing father of a beautiful young woman, only to quickly stumble onto a larger conspiracy involving Nazis, Amazons, and an underground kingdom in Christa Faust's rollicking Hunt Beyond the Frozen Fire.

The Gabriel Hunt series was cooked up by the same people who brought Hard Case Crime into the world, an admirable collection of lost noirs and contemporary novels in the pulp vein. This new series attempts to recapture what might best be called Men's Adventure novels of yore. Supposedly Gabriel Hunt "narrates" these tales to a stable of current writers, which makes for the curious byline.

Honestly I have picked up and put down others in the series before latching onto this one from Faust, whose other novels I have enjoyed. Thankfully Faust keeps tongue firmly in cheek as Hunt's predicaments become increasingly outlandish, culminating with a nude wrestling match and a hair-raising flight in an old Nazi airplane to escape a steaming jungle under the ice cap. If this description makes the hair on your neck stand up, this series is definitely for you.

I bought this for my beloved Kindle and read it in one fell swoop one day while camping in New Harmonie State Park.

#28: Love Me and Die by Day Keene

2010-06-11T23:44:00.000-04:00

Hollywood P.I. Johnny Slagle is asked to find out what happened when a studio's fading star allegedly hit and killed a young woman while drunk driving. Faced with a cover-up, Johnny quits the studio job and vows to bring the killer to justice, even as various forces converge against him, in Day Keene's Love Me and Die.

I have been a Day Keene fan since ever since I read Home is the Sailor, and I try to find the pulp writer's work wherever I can. I felt lucky to nab this from www.paperbackswap.com.

I learned later I got a better deal than I thought as this book is a bit rare, having been expanded by fellow pulpster Gil Brewer in an uncredited turn. Although I have not read anything from Brewster, I understand he is another genre writer who could use some rediscovering.

No matter what its origins, Love Me and Die is brisk and tough as Johnny plows through the sordid underbelly of Hollywood (as if there is any other kind) as the corpses stack up around him. He makes the enemy of studio bosses on down to underworld yeggs, and angers a few dames as well. A really enjoyable slice of noir with some go-go Hollywood mixed in.

#27: Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

2010-06-10T23:43:00.000-04:00

In the wake of his classic album "Juliet" a moderately famous American musician disappears into a self-imposed exile, prompting a rabid online fandom; meanwhile, a lonely British woman strikes up an online friendship with him, and the two gradually coax each other back to life in Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked.

I have been a fan of Hornby's books for a while. They are usually pretty light and funny, and thus have been easily digested into moviedom (High Fidelity, About A Boy). He has always been adept at writing about people who have come to some sort of dead end and need to be jolted awake by various turns of events.

Although Juliet, Naked features a lot of Hornby's familiar standbys--stunted adults, busted relationships, wise children, pop culture riffs--I think his storytelling has been deepening over his last few novels. His observations seem more pointed and his characters more complex.

I always look forward to Nick Hornby's latest and found this one especially rewarding. Recommended.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#26: Monster by Walter Dean Myers

2010-06-04T23:42:00.000-04:00

An inner-city teen is on trial for his role as a lookout in a murderer/robbery in Walter Dean Myers' Young Adult novel Monster.

Myers has been writing mostly urban YA novels since I was a young adult myself, and I had enjoyed my previous exposure to his work. I picked this up, after a long layoff from his books, as I have been reading along with my college daughter's Young Adult Fiction class.

Monster has a unique format; portions of it are written as the protagonist's diary, and portions are written in screenplay format as the main character develops the skills learned in a school video club while waiting in jail. Most of the story takes place during the teen's trial, with flashes of home and school life. Photography and unusual layouts are of interest. The novel has a straightforward narrative but no easy solutions; in fact the teen's actual actions and motivations are left open to much speculation, and would definitely be worth talking about to a young person.

A good read that I picked up from www.paperbackswap.com.

#25: The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

2010-06-04T21:21:00.000-04:00

A master vampire lands in Manhattan, leading to an undead plague in The Strain, the first novel by horror movie director Guillermo Del Toro alongside veteran thriller writer Chuck Hogan.

The novel opens with an empty plane landing at JFK, mirroring Dracula's memorable boat scene (one of many homages paid to a variety of horror classics). In the long, leisurely creepy opening chapters the CDC is dispatched, suspecting terrorism or some sort of viral outbreak. By the time the scientists fathom what has really happened the vampire rampage is in full swing.

Then the novel ramps up full blast as the scientists end up with a smattering of ragtag helpers, including an aged vampire hunter, a municipal rat catcher, and a gangbanger, pursuing the king vampire and his minions across the Big Apple.

Probably 95 percent of the big cast of characters gets killed or turned before the cliffhanger ending (The Strain is the first of a reported trilogy). But along the way there are plenty of skin-crawling shocks and scares to satisfy any horror hound. Del Toro and Hogan come up with their own credible vampire mythology (and no, they aren't sparkly) that adds to the interesting read.

I listened to a really good audio book version read by actor Ron Perlman, on loan from Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#24: When Zachary Beaver Came To Town by Kimberly Willis Holt

2010-05-31T14:41:00.000-04:00

An eventful summer for two pre-teen boys in an uneventful small Texas town begins when Zachary Beaver, billed as the World's Fattest Boy, trundles into town in a trailer as a one-person freak show. After some initial reluctance on both sides, the boys all become friends as they face various trials and tribulations.

Kimberly Willis Holt's When Zachary Beaver Came To Town is a credible, nicely-done coming of age story, full of interesting characters and a good sense of its time and place (early 70s Texas). I thought the rich backstory added quite a bit of food for thought for young readers, especially the fates of the siblings and parents of various characters, and the inner lives of some of the small town's residents.

I really had no expectations for this novel, picking it up solely because I decided to read along with my college daughter's Young Adult Lit class this summer. However, I quickly got drawn into the world depicted and enjoyed the novel quite a bit.

I nabbed this off of www.paperbackswap.com and read it at a good clip.

#23: The White Wolverine Contract by Philip Atlee

2010-05-27T00:49:00.000-04:00

Joe Gall, The Nullifier, goes after some hippies and other malcontents (secretly backed by Commies, natch) trying to overthrow the Canadian government in Philip Atlee's The White Wolverine Contract.

By pure coincidence I bought three Joe Gall books from the White Rabbit Bookstore in Muncie, Indiana that happened to fall right in sequence. The previous one I read, The Canadian Bomber Contract, also took place in the Great White North.

The time is the early 70s, and spy Joe Gall's swingin' days are dimming somewhat. In fact, long passages of this one read more like a travelogue, with a few fistfights and some skirt-chasing mixed in. However, this throwback story is still enjoyable, and rather curiously was nominated for the prestigious Edgar Award in 1972. More for fans of the Gold Medal books of this time period, but despite that I'm sure I'll start the next one, The Kiwi Contract, before long.

#22: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

2010-05-25T23:59:00.000-04:00

On the eve of The Great War, the heir to the Austria-Hungary Empire is on the run after his father is assassinated; meanwhile, a young woman disguised as a boy joins England's air corps and sets off for adventure. How their paths cross is at the heart of Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan, a Young Adult alternate history novel.

This book more accurately would fit in the subgenre of Steampunk, where technological advances are set in historic times. In this version, the Germans are the "Clankers," steering an army of walking and flying machines; and the British and their Allies are the Darwinists, making an army of genetically altered "Beasties" to serve the Crown. Most notable is the Leviathan itself, basically a hydrogen-filled whale piloted like a Zeppelin.

I honestly had no knowledge of the author or his work upon picking this one up, instead selecting it solely on the basis that Alan Cumming was reading the audiobook version. He did a great reading, but I ended up enjoying the storytelling as well (though not so much the cliffhanger ending). Not having read a lot of Young Adult or Steampunk, much less the two mixed together, I ended up enjoying this one quite a bit, and would recommend it to fans of either genre.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana and consumed it at a good pace.

#21: Blue-Eyed Devil by Robert B. Parker

2010-05-24T23:57:00.000-04:00

Gunmen Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, two hard-bitten heroes with their own moral compass, return to Appaloosa to rout out a crooked sheriff in Robert B. Parker's Blue-Eyed Devil, published posthumously.

This is the fourth in this Western series, and features the same elements that made the others successful; interesting characters, no-nonsense plotting, and hyper-laconic dialogue. I would rate this entry slightly above the previous entry as the series circles around to some of the original characters and locations that made the first novel, Appaloosa, so rewarding.

I was glad to see that Robert B. Parker had one more of these tucked away. Enjoyable, for fans of the series.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana and read a lot of it in one fell swoop.

#20: The Canadian Bomber Contract by Philip Atlee

2010-05-13T00:25:00.000-04:00

Nullifier Joe Gall is back, in less exotic climes as he slips over to Canada to stop the bombing of Niagara Falls in Philip Atlee's The Canadian Bomber Contract.

I pick up and read Atlee's work wherever I happen to come across it, so I am not reading these in any particular order. Somehow, this is the first one I have read set in the 70s. The others I have read have taken place in the 60s and feature a lot of content that would not be PC by today's standards. You kind of know what to expect from Atlee after a while, and this one is no exception as the cover features Joe Gall punching out a hippie while a couple of admiring women look on.

But Gall seems to have a bit of a hangover from the swingin' 60s and is somewhat melancholy throughout. He actually only beds about half the women he meets on first sight (although to be fair, one was talking about Women's Lib an awful lot) and at the end makes a surprisingly compassionate speech about accepting draft dodgers back into the fold.

A more tired and philosophical Gall than I had read before, although the storytelling was only moderately interesting next to a lot of nice descriptives of daily experiences in Canada. I suspect Atlee had spent a lot of time there at some point, and is more worth reading on those merits.

I found this for one dollar in the White Rabbit used bookstore in Muncie, Indiana.

#19: Never Die Alone by Donald Goines

2010-05-01T00:32:00.000-04:00

King David, arriving in New York after a long stay in California, is murdered on the street; a passerby who tries to help him is entrusted with his diary, which reveals what brought the drug dealer to a bloody end in Donald Goines' Never Die Alone.

I have been trying to find some of Goines' writing for a while, as he is often compared to one of my favorite authors, Chester B. Himes. But honestly, besides that they were both African-American writers, I didn't see a lot of similarities. Himes' Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones novels are philosophical, lyrical, sardonic mysteries; whereas Goines writes straight-up cold-blooded street prose. King David rather casually cheats other dealers and secretly hooks women he wants to control on heroin, among other crimes big and small.

Goines writes in a tough-minded style, and the fact that his life (and death) often mirrored his novels has added interest in his work over the years. I enjoyed Never Die Alone on its own merits, though it's not for the squeamish.

I snagged this rare treat from www.paperbackswap.com.

#18: Assignment Stella Marni by Edward S. Aarons

2010-04-18T20:46:00.001-04:00

Spy Sam Durell decides to unofficially help a friend's brother, entangled with an ice-cold Hungarian beauty, and ends up himself mixed up in an Iron Curtain plot in Edward S. Aaron's Assignment Stella Marni.

I am rediscovering Aarons' long-running Assignment series with adult eyes and admiring their hard-nosed plots and tough prose. This one is a bit of a departure as Durell acts more like a private eye, tangling with a rogue FBI agent and falling under the spell of Stella Marni himself, even with loyal girlfriend Diedre close by.

This was one of the early entries, from the 1950s, and reflects the Cold War sensibilities of the time. Even so, Aarons manages to inject quite a bit of shading into all of his characters, good and evil.

One of my favorites thus far out of the stack I have been dipping into regularly, that I purchased in a mighty swath of Gold Medal paperbacks some time back. A good entry in the series.