#1: The Red Hills by James W. Marvin

The antihero called Crow joins the U.S. Calvary, just ahead of a modest skirmish called Little Big Horn, in The Red Hills, James W. Marvin's first Western featuring his cold-blooded protagonist.

This novel comes from the so-called Piccadilly Cowboys, (follow this part closely) British writers who wrote Italian-flavored American Westerns in their heyday from the 60s forward.  Marvin obviously read George Gilman's Edge rather closely (and I think even obliquely references the character), probably the grandaddy of all the tarnished heroes of this genre.

But Crow tries to outdo Edge, as the novel opens with the senseless killing of a child's dog, which sets the stage for further unpleasantness involving casual murder and generally repugnant behavior.  In The Caine Mutiny style, a commanding officer is introduced who is even more repellent, and soon Crow sets his sights on revenge.

Interesting, but generally unpleasant, Western for those who like a more tough-minded oater.  I bought this for my beloved Kindle and read it quickly for my first novel of 2013.

Favorite Reads of 2012

I narrowly skated into keeping my promise of reading 50 books in 2012, but made it at the end thanks to a couple of snowbound days right after Christmas.  I had vowed to try to read a little smarter, and thus maybe a little slower, but I think I have a good top ten list favorite reads to show for it.  And here they are:

Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters

He Died With His Eyes Open by Derek Raymond

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

Easy Money by Jens Lapidus

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jessi Adler-Olsen

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Happy Reading and I am off to 2013 and hopefully 50 more.

#50: Treasure Island by Sara Levine

An aimless young woman finds renewed purpose--sort of--when she begins reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, much to the consternation of family and friends, in Sara Levine's novel of the same name (plus a few exclamation points, which Blogger would not let me include in the header).

After barely skidding into 50 books at the end of the year by reading a couple of short pulp novels I decided I would end strong with this more literary volume, which I picked up at a literature conference my wife attended in North Carolina.

The reader's enjoyment of this funny, dark novel will depend on your tolerance for an unpleasant, sometimes morally repugnant main character who is constantly thwarting the best intentions of those around her for her own ends. 

But even with a deeply flawed protagonist I enjoyed Levine's novel quite a bit, and found many laugh-out-loud moments, buoyed by good writing throughout.  A good way to end 2012 and recommended for fans of slacker lit.

#49: Massacre River by John Benteen

Gun-for-hire Neal Fargo is tasked to take a Chinese bride in an arranged marriage to her new husband at a remote Philippine stronghold, battling headhunters, revolutionaries, and other bad seeds along the way in John Benteen's Massacre River.

John Benteen wrote prolifically in the 60s and 70s, primarily in the Western and what is sometimes called Men's Adventure genres.  These burly novels follow a cold-blooded turn-of-the-century fortune hunter and thus probably fall more into the latter category (though the covers would often make you think otherwise).

I found this entry fast-moving and enjoyable, although definitely not nuanced in terms of gender and race as might be expected by contemporary audiences. 

I began and ended it over a snowy day or so from a big stack I got at goodbye prices at a local flea market.

#48: The Dead Woman by David McAfee

Matt Cahill once died and came back with the ability to see evil, which he disposes of with his grandfather's axe; naturally this makes one tend to be a drifter, and Cahill wanders into the path of a serial killer in The Dead Woman, another entry in the Dead Man ebook series.

This television-sized premise has carried through a growing number of slender volumes, and this is the first one that struck me as rather flat.  Although sparked by Cahill meeting a small-town woman with the same powers (though used with more mysterious motives), overall the storyline went pretty much where the reader thinks.  The others I have read in the series have been livened with tongue somewhat in cheek, which might have helped the proceedings here.

But The Dead Woman is a decent horror read as part of what is becoming an interesting series.  I consumed it quickly during a snowbound holiday.

#47: Operation Fireball by Dan J. Marlowe

Drake is "The Man with Nobody's Face," a tough criminally-minded type who runs various operations for his own ends.  In Operation Fireball, Drake reluctantly joins up with a motley band to steal some money out of 1960s Cuba by, surprisingly read with a contemporary eye, sneaking in and out via Gitmo.

Dan J. Marlowe is a fan favorite pulp author, though I have not read any of his work before finding this for my beloved Kindle from Prologue Books.  Marlowe's life seems to have been about as interesting as any of his novels, which are reported to vary wildly in quality.

The Drake series is from the end of his career and is met with mixed reviews in general.  I found this one to be strongly reminiscent of Richard Stark's Parker series, although this has a little more of a spy feel, and Drake has a love interest (which Parker seems to have little time for).   But I liked this one well enough that I will look for more from Marlowe.

#46: Death Match by Christa Faust

Matt Cahill died and came back to life with the ability to see evil everywhere; now, with his trusty axe, he travels the country chasing an elusive quarry in the Dead Man ebook series.  In this outing, by Christa Faust, Cahill stumbles across the death matches of the title, sinister fights being staged by an affluent man for his own amusement.

I picked this one up because I enjoyed Faust's Hard Case Crime novel Money Shot, and found this to be an action-packed, inky-humored, fairly gore-soaked entry in the series.  Faust rather gamely tries to tie this novel into the series (including the first one I read, Blood Mesa), but it can be read on its own merits as a quick read on a snowbound day.

This ebook is the first that I borrowed from the Kindle Lending Library for my new Kindle Fire, and I consumed it quickly.

#45: Alaska Steel by John Benteen

Adventurer for hire Neal Fargo is working in early Hollywood silent movies when a starlet convinces him to accompany her to Alaska to look for a wayward, prospecting husband.  In short order they are knee deep in snow and villains in John Benteen's Alaska Steel.

Alaska Steel is in Benteen's Fargo series, which at first glance appears to be a Western but is really more accurately Men's Adventure, a category of the rough-and-tumble pulp of the 60s and 70s where men were men and guns were well described.

I have liked everything I have come across by Benteen, even though his writing is definitely a product of its time.  This one features several scenes that would be objectionable by contemporary standards whereas a good smack and some rough lovemaking can cure most of a woman's ills.

But the writing is tough and crisp and the adventure fast-moving.  I bought this in a big handful of Fargo novels at a flea market and consumed this one quickly.

#44: The Cutman by Mel Odom and Jack Tunney

A sailor docks in pre-Castro Havana and quickly falls in with a Latin beauty, and runs afoul of local mobsters, in Jack Tunney's The Cutman, the second entry in the Fight Card ebook series.

The Fight Card series emulates the pulpy boxing novels of the Golden Age of paperbacks and boxing magazines, and this volume (penned by Mel Odom under the house pseudonym) is a particularly rollicking entry chockablock full of action. 

Our protagonist (the brother of the lead in Felony Fists, which is a tenuous enough tie between the novels) is a bare-knuckle brawler who, through circumstance, ends up having to fight a superior boxer in a winner-take-all match set up by the ship's crew and the mob muscling into Cuba.  The story pretty much hits the points you would imagine, but is ultimately a satisfying read.

I have been enjoying these Fight Card novels for my beloved Kindle and will seek out more of them as they come out.

#43: The Motive by John Lescroat

A fire rips through one of San Francisco's legendary "painted lady" homes, and when the smoke clears a murdered couple is found inside in John Lescroat's courtroom thriller The Motive.

I have enjoyed reading Lescroat's series, which alternates between a lawyer and a policeman as main characters, but never really seek out the latest one like I would Walter Mosley or Michael Connelly.  This one was loaned to me on audiobook by a friend, and I enjoyed the solidly plotted outing.

Here the lawyer, Dismas Hardy, agrees to defend a former girlfriend in the arson/murder, which he begins to regret as the case goes from largely circumstantial to squeezing the accused tighter and tighter as more of the story unfolds.  Another cop with a grudge against Hardy complicates matters before all is wrapped up in a somewhat surprising denouement.

Good overall, with additional backstory for fans of the series; others can enjoy it as a standalone legal thriller.

#42: Felony Fists by Paul Bishop and Jack Tunney

In the 1950s, a beat cop and amateur boxer helps LA's notorious Hat Squad detectives bring down a crime kingpin in Jack Tunney's initial entry in the Fight Card ebook series, Felony Fists.

The Fight Card series is harking back to the pulp novels, specifically the boxing novels, of yore and does an admirable job with a quick, muscular read.  Jack Tunney is the house pseudonym for a bevy of writers, with Paul Bishop at the helm for this one.

Bishop hits the standard beats as our protagonist rises from an orphanage, where he was taught boxing (naturally), to being a warm-hearted cop in a bad neighborhood, on up to being the underdog in a big fight.

Felony Fists is enjoyable yet undemanding, but I will certainly grab the next one in the series.

I got this for my beloved Kindle and read it quickly.

#41: The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters

A giant meteor is going to destroy Earth in a few months; in the meantime, a solitary policeman in a small town continues to try to hold out order against the chaos in Ben Winters' effective end-of-the world crime novel The Last Policeman.

Winters' protagonist figures out that a local suicide--one among many happening by the score across the globe--was actually a murder, and decides to solve it despite a general indifference by his colleagues and a continuing weakening of the social structure.

Satisfying as both an apocalyptic novel and a good police procedural, Winters also features an interesting lead character whose backstory is teased out slowly throughout.  There is enough left unsaid to warrant at least one more sequel (the meteor still being a ways off at the end of the story), and I will seek it out when it is released.

I bought this from Amazon because the author is the cousin of my wife's friend, if that isn't a convoluted enough reason, and found this to be a really good surprise.  Recommended for fans of both genres.

#40: Until Thy Wrath Be Past by Asa Larsson

Two young people are killed while ice-diving towards a mysterious wreck, drawing a prosecutor and a detective into a case which has been covered up since the end of World War II, in Asa Larsson's Until Thy Wrath Be Past.

I am a fan of Larsson's work and her dual protagonists, Rebeckah Martinsson and Anna-Maria Mella, a lawyer and police detective, respectively, who both have complex personal lives that have evolved during the series.  Her novels take place in a small Swedish town, seemingly perpetually encased in ice and snow, which is nonetheless not immune to grisly crimes.

This novel is a bit different than some of her others in that it deals with guilt over Nazi collaborations (a common theme in a lot of Scandinavian crime novels, it seems) and also features a ghost as a sort of omniscient narrator, an unusual touch.

I always seek out Larsson's books when they come out and think that have been, for the most part, quite good.  Recommended for fans of Scandinavian mysteries especially.

#39: Wagons East by George G. Gilman

Laconic drifter Adam Steele comes across a group of young couples outrunning a secret in George G. Gilman's Wagons East.

Adam Steele is Gilman's lesser-known Western character after Edge, the star of a long string of violent western paperbacks in the 60s and 70s.  I picked up an Edge book after seeing them promoted ceaselessly in the backs of other paperbacks, but found it rather unpleasant and written in an unusual style.

Steele seems to be more of a traditional western hero, and the plot of this one holds few surprises as well.  Steele, although not as well recognized today as Edge, still managed to star in close to 50 of his own titles, so readers were finding and apparently enjoying him.

I again had trouble adjusting to Gilman's writing, written in a staccato style and featuring lots of quips and puns.  I think I will have to try a larger sampling size before deciding what I think of Gilman's work.

I bought this in a large stack of goodbye paperbacks at a flea market in Richmond, Indiana.

#38: This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

This Is How You Lose Her is a much-anticipated series of connected short stories from Junot Diaz, whose novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was a critical success and a personal favorite of mine.

These stories feature the same protagonist, a funny, edgy narrator who nonetheless picks up and discards women at a steady rate.  I enjoyed the short stories, but missed some of the elements of the first novel, including Oscar Wao himself, a D&D-loving nebbish (who I could relate to a little easier than his smooth friend Yunior who holds up this collection).

Although I wouldn't rate This Is How You Lose Her as highly as Wao I did enjoy this work, although I suspect some might enjoy it more than myself.

I actually nabbed this at the Penguin booth at a literary conference my wife was attending and read it in a single day (and then immediately gave it to someone else who wanted to read it as badly).  Recommended for fans of the first novel.

#37: The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

A flu bug wipes out most of the United States, leaving society stripped to its basest form; some years later, a lonely pilot, his trusted dog, and his slightly less trustworthy heavily-armed friend contemplate what's next in Peter Heller's The Dog Stars.

My short review would be that if you love dogs, and you love the Apocalypse, you should definitely check out Heller's freshman work.  In its muscular writing style that favors the outdoors it probably reminds me of a slightly more upbeat version of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but Heller's book has merits all its own.

Our melancholy protagonist is hunkered down at an airport, thinking about a long-ago signal he heard from another control tower.  His eventual decision to begin a journey to follow that voice, even if it leads to his doom in the wider world, makes up the bulk of the story.

I have already recommended this to several people and, despite some genre overtones, would recommend this to anyone interested in general fiction.

I bought this with some birthday money from Amazon and enjoyed it quite a bit.

#36: Easy Money by Jens Lapidus

Three criminals--a middle-class youth who enters the world of high-rollers through selling coke, a young Latin man who escapes from prison after being framed in a drug bust, and a Yugoslavian mob enforcer trying to keep custody of his daughter--cross and re-cross each other's paths in the Stockholm underworld in Jens Lapidus' Easy Money.

I have found a taste for Scandinavian mysteries, but this one reads like straight-up George Pelecanos, a hip, gritty urban thriller.  Lapidus' energetic sketches of Swedish life from the indolent jet-setters on down to the immigrant taxi drivers showed me a side of that country I had not seen in other writers from Scandinavia.

For better or worse, Lapidus dispatches with a lot of the gloom common to these mysteries and writes a very American-style thriller that is the equal to his U.S. counterparts.  How the disparate storylines dovetail in a cold-blooded finale is especially admirable.

For those fishing around for something new after finishing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy would do well by digging this one out. Recommended.

#35: The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King

Roland the Gunslinger finds two unlikely companions--a drug addict and a schizophrenic paraplegic--in his quest to hunt the Dark Tower in Stephen King's second book in the series, The Drawing of the Three.

Stephen King's dark fantasy series The Dark Tower has attracted a lot of readers over the years, but after I tried the first volume, The Gunslinger, I wasn't particularly compelled to keep reading.  I thought I would give it another go after finding it on audio book at the Morrisson-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.

The Drawing of the Three is a big novel in which it seems the overall Dark Tower storyline only inches ahead a fraction.  In my mind, a more detailed description of the plot wouldn't include much more than what I wrote in the first sentence.  I wonder if it is a transitional novel between the first book, which almost could stand alone, and the rest of the series.

But, like a lot of King's work, it is readable enough, and certainly has its fans.  There was enough interesting writing that I will probably look for the third volume at a later date.

#34: Draw Down the Lightning by Ben Bridges

Gun-for-hire O'Brien gets involved with a fiery ranch widow (is there any other kind?) and a heap of varmints angling for her herd in Ben Bridges' brawny western Draw Down the Lightning.

Bridges is a contemporary scribe from a group of British writers who favor American Westerns (collectively called The Piccadilly Cowboys), who can trace their roots back to George G. Gilman and others.

Amazon is constantly suggesting I buy one of Bridges' novels for my beloved Kindle, so I selected this one based on the title alone (Bridges seems to be re-issuing his work and the work of others for ebook at a rapid rate, so there were plenty to choose from).  I found it to be a solid, enjoyable Western with plenty of action and some unique storytelling elements (including the breeding of the widow's herd).

I would definitely look for more work from Ben Bridges and his British counterparts.

#33: Bay Prowler by Mike Barry

Wulff is an ex-cop and former Vietnam vet driven over the edge when his girlfriend is killed by drug dealers; now his one-man war against the drug trade takes him to San Francisco in Mike Barry's Bay Prowler.

Barry (actually author Barry Malzberg) wrote a big chunk of these Lone Wolf Men's Adventure novels at a blistering pace in the 1970s.

This follow-up to Night Raider misses the decaying New York setting brought so vividly to life in the first novel but benefits from introducing a young girl, in the clutches of addiction, who (mistakenly) sees Wulff as an avenging angel.  A slam-bang ending on a burning ship is also a highlight.

Although not as strong as the first novel, Bay Prowler is pretty grim and gritty, and interested me enough to download the third volume from Prologue Books for my beloved Kindle.

#32: The Game-Players of Titan by Philip K. Dick

A Chinese nuke depopulates Earth, leaving it ripe for an alien invasion; mankind's new overlords then set forth a complex series of rules and games to govern everyday life.  But, as in a lot of Philip K. Dick's work, this plot is just a mere backstory for his usual brew of lackluster schlubs, shrewish wives, psychedelic experimentation, mental health issues, and generally unhappy marriages in The Game-Players of Titan.

After a youth full of reading about lantern-jawed sci-fi heroes I have found a midlife enjoyment of Dick's trippy novels, but have been doling them out to myself slowly as I know the list is finite.

I would say Titan is a good mid-range Dick novel, certainly not an entry point for new readers but enjoyable for fans.  Not everything adds up, and there are some shifts in plotting, but Dick's overflowing font of ideas is always admirable.

I got this for my beloved Kindle and read it quickly.

#31: Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

Denis Johnson's Train Dreams is a spare, lean, lyrical novel about a man in turn-of-the-century America who lives through great highs and great lows--but ultimately perseveres.

Johnson is a noted contemporary author who has written across the genres, including a novel about Vietnam and his most recent, in the mystery genre.  I have heard a lot about Johnson and thought this slender novel--which at first glimpse has sort of a western theme--might be a good entry point.

This is a really good slice of literary fiction that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys reading in whatever genre.  Really fine writing, with some magical elements (including a somewhat cryptic denouement) and passages of searing emotion. 

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

#30: Iron House by John Hart

A hitman tries to cut his mob ties for a new love; but when the boss dies, all bets are off, and he finds himself on the run towards an estranged brother with his own problems in John Hart's Iron House.

I had no notion of who John Hart was or what his novel was about when I picked it up on a whim on audiobook at the Morrisson-Reeves Public Library.  But I found Iron House to be a solid beach-style thriller with complex (though mostly unlikeable) characters and a twisty plot.

The Iron House of the title is an ill-run orphanage where the two brothers once lived, with one being rescued by the wife of an influential senator (a couple with their own secrets) while the other brother ends up on the street.  They meet up again as adults in the middle of multiple murder investigations as well as various other nefarious plots and intrigues.

Although it's hard to find characters to root for, Hart draws a fairly rich tapestry for a thriller and writes solidly.  For fans of an easy summer read.

#29: Misterioso by Arne Dahl

An intricately-constructed series of murders target rich Swedes, pulling an eclectic group of cops together to solve the case, in Arne Dahl's Misterioso. 

This band of near-misfit cops, assembled by an aloof commander with a penchant for head-butting, ends up rampaging through every level of Swedish society--from powerful, affluent secret cults to the street thugs working for Eastern European mafia families--in seeking out a killer with a growing list of deaths to his name.

With its tough, complicated cops and sardonic humor I would most equate this novel to a Scandinavian Ed McBain.  Passages about Swedish business, crime, politics, and philosophy are probably of more valuable to those with a knowledge of these things but don't drag the storytelling down too much for U.S. readers.  Interesting characters and both funny and action-packed interludes help tremendously.

This is the first of Dahl's "Intercrime" series to be translated to English, and I hope more is not far behind.  A solid read for fans of Scandinavian Crime.

#28: Night Raider by Mike Barry

A VietNam vet turned NYC narcotics cop gets too close the exposing corruption, and finds his girlfriend dead as a warning; something snaps, and he becomes a one-man war on drugs in Mike Barry's first Lone Wolf novel, Night Raider.

Mike Barry--actually sci fi writer Barry Malzberg--passed into legend by writing a big chunk of this series of Men's Adventure novels in a single year in the early 70s.  And Night Raider has a hastily-written quality to it, with characters' names and personalities shifting and an instance of someone getting on the subway and arriving shortly thereafter in a cab.

But there is a feverish intensity to the novel as well, and a vivid depiction of the decaying Big Apple of the 1970s, before the clean-up of Times Square and elsewhere.  Barry also uses an interesting plot device amidst the carnage as the Lone Wolf of the title picks out a dealer on the street and becomes determined to follow a single thread as far as it will go, with death a constant companion.

Like a lot of Men's Adventure-type novels there is a lot of attention paid to guns and weaponry but also a rather curious fixation on engines and cars and muscle cars in particular.

I got this cheaply for my beloved Kindle and read it quickly, then downloaded the next one in the series from Prologue Books.  A quick read, but not entirely undemanding, for discerning readers.