#28: The Ballad of Beta-2 by Samuel R. Delany

Trippy sci-fi has student tasked with tracing a poem that originated during a star-journey in which spaceship society devolved over a generations-long flight. The student makes a space-jaunt to the fleet of supposedly junked ships and finds that they aren't quite as abandoned as he thought.

I became a big fan of Samuel R. Delany last year and keep an eye out for his work. This one was the first one I nabbed from the book-swapping site www.paperbackswap.com (an improvement over BookCrossing, I think, which I used to call "Book Throwing Away Club"). I swallowed this in a single gulp on a long afternoon on the beach in Traverse City, Michigan.

The Ballad of Beta-2 is an early work and, although interesting, not as fully ripened with the wild imagination of some of his later novels such as Nova and Babel-17. In fact, its brief page count means big chunks of exposition are dealt with rather briskly.

However, a lot of Delany's trademarks are here, and there are bouts of neat ideas, making it worth reading for Delany completists like myself.

#27: Go Green, Live Rich by David Bach

Interesting collection of insights about how to green your life and perhaps save/make some money at the same time. Go Green, Live Rich is a rather slender, breezy volume written with the cheery agressiveness of a lot of business books of this type.

This seems like a curious selection based on previous blog entries, and it is. I had to select a "green" book to complete the summer reading program at the Morrison-Reeves Library. I picked this one because of having some interest in green living and green applications at work and home. This very quick read had some decent takeaways; however, I wasn't convinced that if I took all my savings from going green and invested it I would become rich.

Go Green, Live Rich will provide some food for thought as a primer for green thinking, especially if the reader hasn't been exposed to the concepts before.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond Indiana and read it in a short span of lunch breaks.

#26: The Paper Pistol Contract by Philip Atlee

Nullifier Joe Gall is given the tricky assignment of spoiling a French nuclear test and pinning it on the Chinese in The Paper Pistol Contract by Philip Atlee.

Naturally, this being written in the swinging 60s, Joe leaves a little time for the ladies and to kill a Godless Communist or two. But in the end I was a bit surprised how philosophical Gall is and more surprised at a somewhat downbeat ending; in fact Gall's "contract" more or less ends in ruins, with the bodies of friends and foes alike around him.

Atlee also displays a fine, full sense of place and character that makes his writing a cut above the usual pulp fare of that era. I was genuinely pleased with the last Joe Gall adventure I read (scroll down) and will keep looking for more of Atlee's work (even as, it seems, more and more of the Gold Medal paperbacks of my youth are in landfills, or somewhere).

I bought this one in a big heaping helping of Atlee and Edward S. Aarons paperbacks from ebay and looking forward to more.

#25: Bangkok Tattoo by John Burdett

A Thai cop with his own curious code of ethics (on display in Burdett's last novel with this character, Bangkok 8) intervenes when a prostitute--who works in his mother's brothel--kills an American spy. Soon our somewhat tarnished protagonist stages a coverup that draws the attention of the U.S. government, potential terrorists, and corrupt cops and soldiers.

John Burdett's writing features steel-hearted storytelling spiked with dark humor and shocking bursts of sex and violence. Plenty of Bangkok red-light adventures makes this one cautious treading for the unwary reader, but I really liked our protagonist's circuitous philosophical musings. I will be looking for the third in this series, I believe freshly released.

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

#24: Moneyball by Michael Lewis

Billy Beane continues to spin straw into gold with the Oakland A's, a traditionally underfunded baseball team with ongoing successes. How he does so is at the center of Michael Lewis' Moneyball, an entertaining piece of reporting heavy with arcane baseball logic but leavened with interesting human interest stories.

Whether you are a hardcore baseball person or a more fair-weather dabbler like myself, Moneyball is engaging storytelling. A reader can tell that Lewis enjoyed the subject and he writes in a bright, clear style. It is interesting to see what has happened to some of the characters--I mean, actual baseball players--since the writing of the book and how the A's have fared overall.

I picked this up for a quarter at a library book sale and passed it on to another baseball fan when I was finished.

#23: Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs, a private investigator and amateur psychologist in 1930s London, takes on the case of a missing heiress that eventually leads back to multiple murders driven by a shameful act during World War I.

This is the second of the series featuring Maisie Dobbs, and like the first has a mildly engaging mystery. But Dobbs has a great backstory; she was a poor girl who came up "in service" as a maid to a quirky mistress who later sent her to college, then later still serves as a nurse at the front in World War I, becoming wounded and then coming under the toutelage of a Poirot-like investigator and eventually taking over his practice.

Consequently, I picked up the second novel mostly to see what happened to Maisie Dobbs next, and again found the storylines from the past more compelling than the present mystery presented. I think the writing is a little more clear-eyed than what you might find in the typical English "cozy" mystery, and Winspear writes with a nuanced ear for details. This, more than any plotting, would encourage me to get the next in the series.

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

#22: The Silken Baroness Contract by Philip Atlee

Secret agent Joe Gall, "The Nullifier," goes deep undercover to sort out various intrigues in the Canary Islands and elsewhere in Philip Atlee's enjoyable spy outing The Silken Baroness Contract.

As I wrote recently, I have a renewed interest (along with a fair chunk of fandom) in finding some pulpy Gold Medal books of the 50s-70s, and getting acquainted (or re-acquainting myself) with this body of work.

I had not read Atlee before and found myself pleasantly surprised. His protagonist, Joe Gall, never found a doll he didn't want to bed or a commie he didn't want to kill, but Atlee has a great sense of detail and place and passages of fine writing, as well as finely-tuned action scenes and bolts of (non-PC) humor. Gall was a more well-rounded character than I thought I would find, once you get past all of the saber-rattling (including one eyebrow-raising scene where Gall, in a steambath, kneads the stump of a Korean War vet who lost his leg).

I thought I would briefly dip into Atlee before resuming another Edward S. Aarons book, but find myself inclined to try Atlee again sooner.

I bought this book in a happily large lot of Gold Medal paperbacks from ebay.

#21: Brimstone by Robert B. Parker

Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, the two laconic gunmen from Robert B. Parker's Appaloosa and Resolution novels, return for a third round in Brimstone, another tightly-wound Western.

Here our lawmen sort out a town in which a somewhat suspicious religious leader carries on a spiritual campaign against the saloons with some heavily-armed "deacons" while a rogue Indian killer nips at the town's heels. But at the center of the story is Virgil Cole's relationship with a serially unfaithful woman, highlighting that even the fastest gun in the West is still susceptible to the p-whip.

I would rate this trilogy highly in the modern Western canon; certainly not at the level of Larry McMurtry or Cormac McCarthy but within shooting range of Elmore Leonard and probably ready to have a showdown with Loren Estleman. Terse writing, leavened with humor, makes this a fast read.

I checked this out from the Farmland Public Library and chewed through it quickly.

#20: Assignment Madeleine by Edward S. Aarons

Spy Sam Durrell reluctantly goes to Algeria in the heat of the French conflict there to bring back a triple-crossing American agent who killed his mentor; soon he ends up fighting killers on all sides during a race across the desert in Edward S. Aarons' Assignment Madeleine.

I dipped into Aarons' "Assignment" series with Sam Durrell many, many years ago and remember the few books I read being competent but perhaps a notch below my favorite of that era, Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm novels. However, reading this one with fresh, or perhaps more seasoned, eyes I found this to be very tough, terse writing. Aaron presents the political nuance of John LeCarre as well, which surprised me for a series novel.

Fortunately I bought a big chunk of these (and some Philip Atlee Joe Gall novels in the same ebay lot, an admirable load of Gold Medal paperbacks) and will be able to try some more later and see how others stand the test of time.

Once I had some of these of my own, but I can't find them or have let them slip through my fingers, and in fact a lot of people have done the same as you can't find Gold Medal books in used bookstores like you used to, all crowded out by big thick Tom Clancys and John Grishams.

Edward S. Aarons seems to be having a bit of a revival in pulp fandom, so I thought I would find out for myself. And I was glad I did.

#19: Missing by Karin Alvtegen

A woman with a privileged upbringing ends up living on the streets, but a shocking murder draws her back into society in Karin Alvtegen's Swedish thriller Missing.

I have enjoyed this recent spate of moody Scandinavian mysteries winding their way here, and would rate this one highly. The story of how our protagonist, Sibylla, becomes homeless is almost more compelling than the central mystery, in which through circumstances (and then intent) she becomes the central suspect in the ritual killing.

But Missing is compelling overall and reads at a good clip (I think I finished it in three or four days). For mystery fans, most of these Scandinavian writers represent a good change of pace. I will look for more from Alvtegen, already well established in her own country. Recommended.

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

#18: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

A boy with an alter-ego named "Crow" runs away after being told of an Oedipal curse on his head; meanwhile, an elderly man who can talk to cats begins on a parallel odyssey after a brutal killing. Their paths converge at a strange library not far from a ghost-filled wood. Both a painting and a one-hit wonder song called "Kafka on the Shore" play critical roles.

Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore is incredibly difficult to summarize, as one might derive from the previous paragraph. It is strangely dreamlike, to the point of drowsiness, paragraphs of mundane detail punctuated with surprising bursts of murder, rape, and more. Serial killers and pimps drift past librarians and truck drivers. There are slugs falling from the sky, possible UFOs, and various benign and evil spirits.

Obviously not for all tastes, but certainly unique and with merit for those looking for a change of pace. I borrowed this on audiobook from my pal Michael, who you can see in the sidebar is also trying to read 50 books this year.

#17: The Repairmen of Cyclops by John Brunner

Galactic cops get on the trail of interplanetary body-snatchers in John Brunner's brisk sci-fi outing The Repairmen of Cyclops.

John Brunner was a popular sci-fi writer of the 60s and 70s who I have never gotten into; and, in fact, I can think of two or three of his novels I have picked up and put down over the years without finishing. This was my first one of his I read all the way through, and I found it to be a serviceable yarn on one half of an Ace Double I snagged for a quarter.

I learned this was the last of a trilogy featuring these characters in various space exploits, though I didn't feel any confusion or loss from missing the others. Enough neat ideas, at a good clip, to make me think about revisiting some other Brunner.

Almost worth owning just for the cool orange 60s cover alone; google it and you'll see waht I mean.

#16: Little Girl Lost by Richard Aleas

P.I. John Blake finds out a murdered stripper, found on the roof of a seedy NYC strip joint, was his former high school girlfriend last seen heading for medical school ten years' past.  Blake decides to dig into the murder, much to his regret, in Richard Aleas' Hard Case Crime novel Little Girl Lost.

I actually read Aleas' second John Blake novel, Songs of Innocence, first, and found it to be one of my favorite of the contemporary entries in the Hard Case Crime series, mostly reprints of lost noir with attractive retro pulp covers.  As well it should be, as Richard Aleas is actually Charles Ardai, the editor of Hard Case Crime and no slouch himself, as it turns out, in hard-boiled writing.

In fact, his John Blake mysteries are pretty seamy and downbeat, even by the high standards of the Hard Case Crime line.  Overall, the two Aleas books are among the stronger on the contemporary side of the Hard Case Crime house.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana, and was surprised to find it amidst their small paperback collection.

#15: An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe

A Broadway stage star is convinced by a wizard detective to spy on a powerful industrialist recently returned from an alien planet, causing romantic and dramatic complications, in Gene Wolfe's genre-bending pulpfest An Evil Guest.

Wolfe's wholly original Book of the New Sun opus (which begins with The Shadow of the Torturer) stands as one of my favorite sci-fi/fantasy series, though its density may not be for all tastes.  The same might be said of this stand-alone outing, a tribute of sorts to the pulp era, an oddball mash-up that might have happened if H.P. Lovecraft and Cornell Woolrich decided to put on Ziegfield's Follies.  If you know what I'm talking about, rush out and get this right away.

I'm a big fan of Gene Wolfe and thought this was a solid entry to his, I think, somewhat underrated body of work.

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

#14: Meet Me At The Morgue by Ross Macdonald

A parole officer gets drawn into a kidnapping plot when he is convinced one of his parolees is innocent. In trying to find the kidnapped child, our protagonist gets drawn into a dark tangle of broken families and failing marriages in Ross Macdonald's Meet Me At The Morgue.

Like many, I find Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer mysteries one of the touchstone series of contemporary crime fiction. Macdonald's eye for the inner lives of people as well as the external world he lived in (centered around California) is unparalleled. I long ago devoured most of the series.

This is a non-series work, but features a lot of the key themes of Macdonald's writing. A bit more workmanlike than some of his novels, but features several memorable turns of phrase and passages of fine writing.

I bought this for a quarter at a library book sale and read it even as the yellowed pages were falling out of it. Made me hanker to find more Ross Macdonald that I had previously not read.

#13: Real World by Natsuo Kirino

In the Tokyo suburbs, a troubled teen clubs his mother to death and goes on the run, drawing four curiously disaffected classmates into his web.  The four girls' misguided efforts to alternately help and hinder their classmate "Worm" end in suicide, more murder,  and general mayhem, in Natsuo Kirino's noirish psychological novel Real World.

Although I have enjoyed a fair slice of anime, manga, and Japanese horror films, I don't think I knew enough about Japanese culture to fully understand what Kirino was trying to say about her teenage protagonists; but most of the story can be applied to desensitized and pop culture-glutted young people anywhere.  Chilly prose and chilling storytelling throughout.

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

#12: The Black Path by Asa Larsson

Lawyer Rebecka Martinsson, reeling from the traumatic events of her recent past, retreats to her grandmother's old cabin in northern Sweden and eventually gets drawn into a local brutal murder by steadfast cop Anna-Maria Mella.  The victim is part of a debauched, jet-setting elite group with messy business ties that both women try to unravel in Asa Larsson's philosophical thriller The Black Path.

I found Larsson's first novel Sun Storm a solid legal thriller, but the second, The Blood Spilt, almost a rewrite of her first effort. The storytelling is quite different here and relies on a much larger group of characters, including giving a broader role to the police characters from the first two novels.  Larsson jumps around from viewpoint to viewpoint, killers to victims to hunters, weaving more of a psychological study than a true mystery.  The ending, especially, leaves the reader to draw a few of their own conclusions. 

Overall I found The Black Path to be a solid read for those familiar with the more morose, meandering writings of the Scandinavian mystery writers.  I will look for the next in Larsson's series.

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

#11: The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

A youth being raised in a shack in the middle of a vast opium field learns he is the clone of El Patron, the hard-hearted ruler of the country called Opium, a sliver-sized dictatorship between a crumbling U.S. and a socialist Mexico. When he comes of age, and realizes what El Patron has kept him around for, he strikes out for adventure in Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion.

I was actually about halfway through this interesting sci-fi story when I realized it was written for the young adult market; hard to believe from the description I gave, but it really is appropriate for that age range, as well as adult readers.

I liked Farmer's writing style and appreciated that the plot veered away from European- or American-centric storytelling. Even though Nancy Farmer seems to write primarily for the young adult market, I will look for more of her writing.

I started listening to this one on audio book on loan from the Indiana University East library, but when I had to return it I quickly went to Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana and checked out the text version to finish it up. A solid read.

#10: Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

An aging metal star is haunted by ghosts, from his past and otherwise, in Joe Hill's chilling spook story Heart Shaped Box.

I actually started this book in 2008 but put it down three times, finally finishing it today.  I checked it out from the Farmland Public Library and, since it got where I would not read it at night, couldn't get it done in time before it was due.  The truth is I also put it down when it scared the bejeezus out of me, which was frequently. Despite its pop-culture trappings this is an old-school ghost story at heart, and therein the fright lies.  

Heart Shaped Box is the debut novel from Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King, and I'm not sure if that was supposed to be a secret at some point but a glance at his author photo and the jig's up.  He writes a bit like his dad, but I saw more of George R.R. Martin's writing there, especially The Armageddon Rag.

This is a genuinely frightening tale that I enjoyed, when I could bring myself to read it.  For fans of old school horror, from a new voice.

#9: A Cure for Night by Justin Peacock

A big-firm lawyer, after a scandal, takes a tumble to the Brooklyn Public Defenders office, where a housing project shooting has him facing his past as well as a dangerous present.

Justin Peacock's sturdy legal thriller A Cure for Night has a splash of speedy John Grisham plotting and a dash of Scott Turow's nuanced characterizations, but Peacock's own background as a lawyer in Brooklyn is all his, and seems to ring true to me.

The story heads along its expected routes up to a surprising ending that did tie everything up nicely. This was a solid, straightforward legal thriller with its feet on the ground, and certainly to be appealing to fans of the genre.

This is Peacock's first novel, and I would read another from him. I borrowed this from Morrison-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana, and read it over a couple of snowy days.

#8: Shooting Star by Robert Bloch

A literary agent and part-time private eye tries to help clear the name of a murdered cowboy star in Robert Bloch's Shooting Star, another in the admirable series of pulp reprints showcased by Hard Case Crime.

I thought Shooting Star was an enjoyable, if minor, work by Bloch (author of Psycho and more). The private eye was agreeably smart-alecky and Bloch seemed to have a good feel for Hollywood in the late 50s, the setting of this novel. There are plenty of smoldering dames and gat-wielding yeggs along the way as our tarnished protagonist gets mixed up in a "reefer" ring selling "tea" and "muggles."

I am a longtime fan of Hard Case Crime and found this to be an enjoyable outing. This one, I believe, is the first printed in that old-school "Ace Double" style, with another Bloch novel, Spiderweb, on the flip side. I will, I'm sure, start reading that one shortly.

I purchased this paperback with a Christmas gift card and chewed through it pretty quickly.

#7: The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly

One-time hotshot lawyer Mickey Haller tries to come back from an addiction problem when he inherits a slain friend's clients, including a big-time movie producer about to go on trial for double murder, in Michael Connelly's brisk legal thriller The Brass Verdict.

I find Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series, about a tarnished cop with his own code of ethics and a weighted past, to be one of the finest contemporary mystery series out there (with Walter Mosely's Easy Rawlins a close second). I have not read Connelly's off-series novels as closely, but picked this one up as Bosch has a supporting role.

Connelly writes in a clipped style that gives away his background in journalism, but writes fully-rounded characters.  I enjoyed this outing, even though Bosch had a tertiary part, and read it at a good clip.  I will probably seek out the other novel featuring Haller, The Lincoln Lawyer.

Connelly is one of my favorite mystery writers, and I think this is a solid read from him.  

I checked this out from the Farmland Public Library in Farmland, Indiana.

#6: Now Wait for Last Year by Philip K. Dick

A doctor sets his marital problems aside to help the Earth get out of an unwinnable galactic war in Philip K. Dick's mind-boggling Now Wait for Last Year.

I find The Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep to be milestone science fiction novels, not just of Dick's work but of the genre, but the more I read of Dick the more I realize how deep his body of work goes. I finished 2008 reading Martian Time-Slip and found it to be one of Dick's finer works as well, and A Scanner Darkly remains a favorite.

Although Now Wait for Last Year treads a lot of Dick's familiar trails--everyday people caught up in huge events, time travel, drug abuse, paranoid government conspiracies, p-whipping shrews, odd robots and aliens--I found the writing to be denser and more downbeat than some of his funnier, freer works; and thus somehow more rewarding.

I read this in a very fine edition from the Library of America in their second volume of Dick's collected works. With biographical notes and comments from Jonathan Lethem (whom I am realizing, the more I read of Lethem, is a stylistic follower of Dick's), the Library of America volumes are worth picking up. I have been giving them as gifts in that way that you kind of want them for yourself. This one I checked out from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#5: Steel-Jacket by Merle Constiner

Laconic gun hand helps a naive homesteader cross treacherous ground in Merle Constiner's easygoing oater Steel-Jacket.

I have come to Constiner's work lately after reading praise of him from other pulp fans. I enjoy his work, and found this one to be a cut above his usual fare. Typically Constiner has a lantern-jawed hero, a spitfire woman, and a wise older man who helps the hero, with everything snug tightly at the end.

Here, our cowpoke is more clever and funny than Constiner usually allows, giving the overall work a looser feel.

I picked this one up for a shiny quarter at an area flea market and enjoyed a quick read.

#4: Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis

Hallucinogenic hybrid of horror, family drama, and quasi-autobiography, Lunar Park features bad boy writer Brett Easton Ellis (author of the controversial American Psycho) deciding to settle down with his movie-star wife and his (previously unclaimed) son in suburbia, only to find their house haunted and their family life deteriorating.

Reviews of Lunar Park were polarized, with some critics hating it and some loving it. I fell in the latter category, but recognize that it might not be for all tastes. There are elements of tell-all, with real people and situations depicted; but there is also skin-crawling horror, with ghosts and demons and the like popping out of the woodwork. Fellow Brat Pack writer Jay McInerney appears, and is a real person; but Ellis' wife and son aren't. The fictional killer from American Psycho appears to be on the loose as well. But real emotions, of relations between fathers and sons, of failures and regret, all ring true.

And, most surprisingly, Ellis casts himself as a weaselly a-hole throughout. The idea of the "unreliable narrator" takes on real resonance here; especially late in the book, when the continuous horrors finally causes Ellis to split into two characters, one he calls "The Author." I enjoy this type of meta storytelling and thought it was well-crafted.

Overall Lunar Park is a confounding book, but--knowing little about Ellis and having not been exposed to his previous work--I could enjoy it on its own merits. Another early front-runner in my favorites column for 2009.

I read this on a very good audio book recorded by James Van Der Beek, given to me by a friend.