#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.

#27: The Score by Richard Stark

Ice-cool criminal Parker gets involved with an intricate plot to rob an entire mining town in a single night, against his better judgement, in Richard Stark's The Score.

I came back to Donald Westlake's Richard Stark pseudonym via Darwyn Cooke's excellent graphic novels about Parker, as well as their appearance at goodbye prices for my beloved Kindle.  They have all, thus far, proved to be very crisp, hard-nosed crime novels.

As is often the case, after much build-up a few wrenches get thrown in the mix just in time for a slam-bang finale, including a surprising revelation about a main character's motives.  Naturally Parker's instincts prove out and he again escapes by the skin of his teeth, with just a hint of further treachery to come.

A solid early entry in the Parker series.

#26: Blood Mesa by James Reasoner

A loner, who survived a near-death experience only to be rewarded with an ability to see evil all around him, ends up as a handyman at a college's archaeological dig; but in short order they dig up something that should have remained buried in James Reasoner's Blood Mesa, from the "Dead Man" ebook series.

I got interested in seeing what this series was about via Twitter and decided to start with a contribution from the always-steady James Reasoner.  The Dead Man series in general follows our haunted protagonist as he drifts from place to place either trying to find, or being stalked by, a satanic figure called Mr. Dark.

Reading summaries of the other novels in the series makes me think that the series has pieces and parts from a little of everything across the map, but in this particular edition it adds up to a pleasing, if not particularly strenuous, whole.

I bought a collected volume of these for my beloved Kindle and am interested enough to read another.

#25: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

A man finds himself mysteriously transported to Mars, and quickly becomes involved in various civil wars and bidding for the hand of a martian princess in Edgar Rice Burroughs' first Mars novel A Princess of Mars.

I was a devoted Tarzan fan as a teen but never (at least in my memory) dipped into these Mars novels.  I found this on audio book at the Morrisson-Reeves Public Library and decided to give it a go after seeing (what I thought) was a pretty underrated film version in John Carter.

Part travelogue and part Men's Adventure, A Princess of Mars is a brisk, enjoyable sci-fi adventure that holds up pretty well despite being written almost a century ago.  I would recommend it for anyone who enjoyed the film version, or enjoys Golden Age pulp writing.

#24: Trullion: Alastor 2262 by Jack Vance

A spacefarer returns home, longing for family and hearth, only to meet up with mysterious cults, aquatic beasts, space pirates, robbery, and treachery in Jack Vance's whacked-out sci-fi Trullion.

As I have gotten older I have started liking hotter and rarer foods as well as what I used to disparagingly call hippie-fi, science fiction of the 60s and 70s (I was more a lantern-jawed 40s and 50s reader for most of my youth).  Although not as philosophically resonant as Philip K. Dick or Samuel R. Delany, Jack Vance's novel gets credit for plenty of crazy ideas and out-of-the-box thinking, and I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.

Some of the out-of-the-box thinking focuses on our protagonist playing Hussade, a complicated sport with water tanks, trapezes, and virgins that is extremely popular on the planet and part of several plot developments.  Bonus points for having a Hussade opponent named Denzel Warhound.

This was the first book loaned to me for my beloved Kindle as part of their new book-borrowing program, and I read it quickly.  Recommended for fans of psychedelic sci-fi.

#23: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

Two gunslinging brothers are set on a murderous trail, seeing their lives change slowly--then quickly--in Patrick deWitt's lyrical Western The Sisters Brothers.

The novel will probably draw parallels to the Coen Brothers' version of True Grit (and naturally Charles Portis' novel), but it felt more to me like the longer-ago film Little Big Man (and Thomas Berger's novel as well).   

The Sisters Brothers is filled with dark magic and allegory, longing and regret, the hero's journey.  With all of that it is written in a baroque, often humorous style and is a quick read.

This book came recommended to me from several avenues and was loaned by a friend.  It's the kind of book, like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo a few years ago, that I feel comfortable recommending to anyone who likes to read.  Probably one of my favorite reads of the year to date.

#22: The Dead Man's Brother by Roger Zelazny

A former art thief turned mostly legit art dealer is thrust back into danger when the body of a dead friend turns up in his New York gallery, sending him on a journey from the deepest jungles to the solemn halls of the Vatican in Roger Zelazny's The Dead Man's Brother.

This is an offbeat entry from the notable Hard Case Crime paperback noir series as it features a lost work of Zelazny's, who was almost exclusively known as a fantasy and science fiction writer.  His series The Chronicles of Amber seems to have been read by everyone who read fantasy novels in the 70s and 80s, including myself.

This adventure-style novel is a definite departure for Zelazny as our globe-hopping protagonist tries to clear his name, meeting exotic women and fighting sinister villains along the way.  Although definitely a product of a less enlightened era, with many non-PC moments, it is a fun read throughout.

I picked this up not only because I like Zelazny and Hard Case Crime but because some of the novel takes place at the Vatican, which I had visited.  I bought this with an Amazon gift card and read it in one swoop on a plane ride back from Italy.

#21: The Terracotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri

While trying to solve a series of contemporary crimes, a Sicilian police detective finds a pair of long-dead lovers in a sealed cave; working both cases, past and present, is at the core of Andrea Camilleri's The Terracotta Dog, the second in his popular Inspector Montalbano series.

This series has been recommended to me, but I did not come across one of Camilleri's books until I stayed in a hotel in Florence, Italy and stumbled on one on the swap shelf. 

I found Camilleri's novel to be a good police procedural with funny, often raunchy, overtones. There is a lot of cultural flavor and unique characterizations in The Terracotta Dog that separates it from other crime writing.  The main detective is especially memorable with a lot of interesting personality traits.

I read this rather quickly towards the end of my visit to Italy.  I will be looking for more of Montalbano's adventures in the future.

#20: The Silent Wall by Peter Rabe

After World War II, a man returns to a remote Italian village looking for a lost love, and slights a few members of the local populace;  this starts an escalating series of incidents that quickly turn desperate in Peter Rabe's chilling noir The Silent Wall.

Rabe creates a nightmarish, steadily worsening situation as the local populace closes ranks--a silent wall in several ways--and won't allow the former G.I. to leave.  His various schemes to escape--all the while getting interested in another local beauty--are the center of a worsening gyre.  Although I saw the ending coming a little ways out, the storytelling is compelling throughout.

I think Peter Rabe is one of the lesser-known great noir writers of the 50s and 60s, but I have always had a soft spot for him as he is really the first author to turn me on to this genre.  His themes of darkness and despair are, to me, the equal of Cornell Woolrich and he has the spare prose of a Raymond Chandler.  I think it is interesting that several of his books take place in Italy. 

As I was returning to Italy this summer, I decided to seek one out that I had not read.  I found this one for my beloved Kindle and read it quickly.  Recommended for noir fans.

#19: The Devil's Home On Leave by Derek Raymond

A nameless detective who works dead-end cases in an ominous London police building called The Factory chases a serial killer in The Devil's Home On Leave, the second novel in Derek Raymond's Factory series.

The first novel, He Died With His Eyes Open, is an absolutely harrowing, philosophical murder mystery and a milestone London noir for those with discriminating tastes.  I didn't find the follow-up novel to be quite as strong, but still an offbeat story with lots of crackling dialogue.

Although our philosophical protagonist figures out the killer early on, he ruminates over the nature of evil for quite a stretch between some bare-knuckled adventuring.  A tense conclusion/confrontation ties the story up nicely, though a subplot with espionage overtones seemed misplaced to me and distracted a bit from the overall work.

I first discovered Derek Raymond among the used booksellers along London's South Bank last year and regretted not grabbing a handful when I had the chance.  I was lucky to find this one used here in the States and read it quickly on a return flight to Europe.  Overall, still recommended and I will look for the third volume in the series.

#18: Wolf Tickets by Ray Banks

Two old friends--who bonded over shared sociopathic tendencies and various addiction problems-- find themselves chasing an old girlfriend who ran off with another man, a cache of drugs, and a prize leather jacket; soon things get worse, then worse again, in Ray Banks' Wolf Tickets.

I thoroughly enjoyed an early outing from Edinburgh noir author Banks, Dead Money, another very tough crime novel, so I was eager to pick this one up.  Once again this novel features two knockaround protagonists--although in this case with chapters in alternating voices--and a storyline that veers from sardonic humor to chilling spatters of violence.

The main drawback to Wolf Tickets is that at times I had a hard time delineating between the two voices; but this one also comes with a warning for the casual reader who is unprepared for various scenes of violence, torture, and abuse (of substances, other people, and The King's English).

This came to me from Blasted Heath, a highly admirable ebook publisher from across the pond who are putting out some crackling contemporary noir.  Recommended for fans of the hard-boiled.