#18: Assignment Stella Marni by Edward S. Aarons

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.

#17: Murder Doll by Milton Ozaki

Chicago P.I. Carl Good looks for a cheating husband's mistress and ends up tangling with the mob in Milton Ozaki's potboiler Murder Doll.  Ozaki, notable as an early Japanese-American crime novelist, writes in a rat-a-tat style, featuring a typical gumshoe of that era who is quick with a gun and a quip. 

The story races along improbably--especially a sequence where Good is imprisoned at a nudist camp in northern Indiana--but is genial enough and surely enjoyable for fans of 50s pulp novels.  I wouldn't seek out Ozaki again, but I'm sure if I came across another of his novels I would enjoy it.

I bought this for beloved Kindle for only 99 cents and read a good chunk of it in one fell swoop.

#16: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett

Nonfiction exploration of book collecting, featuring curiously amoral book thief John Gilkey and the legion of rare book dealers that gathered to send him to jail.  Author Allison Hoover Bartlett inserts herself into the narrative, sometimes uncomfortably, as she gets involved with both sides of the story.

Voracious readers like myself will find interesting passages on the nature of collecting various things, and John Gilkey is a character really too strange for fiction.  Reading some of the interesting book anecdotes made me start thinking about used bookstores and garage sales a bit differently.  Overall, I enjoyed this look into a subculture I was only aware of in a tertiary way.

I listened to this on audio book on loan from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#15: Odd Man Out by Matt McCarthy

At the start of baseball season, I picked up this raucous account of average baseball player and brief minor league pitcher Matt McCarthy, who writes about one roller-coaster season at the fringes of baseball with the Provo Angels.

McCarthy has plenty of raunchy and funny anecdotes, and played with a surprising number of future major-leaugers as well as a larger number of wash-outs (whose stories are as interesting).  Most baseball books talk about life in the spotlight, but this autobiography shines a light on an aspect not seen nearly as frequently.  In that way it reminded me favorably of Pat Conroy's My Losing Season.

A little googling shows that the accuracy of some of McCarthy's accounts have been called into question, but I liked his writing style and enjoyed the work overall.

I borrowed this book from Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana and read it at a good pace; now I'm ready to visit some ballparks.

#14: Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick

A small moon used as a mental hospital is lost behind enemy lines during a galactic war; now Earth wants to reclaim it, only to find it has developed its own culture based on the different mental illnesses of those who were left behind.  A counselor, a CIA agent, a TV comedian, various robots, and a telepathic slime mold all converge there, for various reasons, in Philip Dick's trippy Clans of the Alphane Moon.

I've read a lot of Philip Dick in the last few years, and you have to admire him for never running out of ideas.  I thought this outing had more strange notions than most, as my brief description hardly scrapes the surface.  What I like about Dick's work is how he is able to take star-spanning stories and put them in the hands of everyday people; in this case, the counselor and the secret agent, whose marriage is crumbling, the details of which weigh as heavily in the storytelling as the planet-hopping spies and aliens.

A very free-wheeling and imaginative sci-fi story with grounding in the minutiae of daily life; one of my favorites of his books to date.  Recommended for fans.

I nabbed this one from www.paperbackswap.com.

#13: Room to Swing by Ed Lacy

Down-on-his-luck New York P.I. Toussaint Moore does some low-level shadowing work for a big television network and ends up getting framed for murder in Ed Lacy's Room to Swing.

Room to Swing is a highly enjoyable pulp outing from the 50s and is notable on two counts; one, it features an early depiction of an African-American private eye, and second, the prolific Lacy won an Edgar for this work.

Moore is quick with the wisecracks and the knuckle sandwiches, as the genre dictates, but the story benefits greatly from its socio-politcal elements as Moore walks the mean streets of the big city and the rural countryside, dealing with various prejudices and hunting who framed him.

I stumbled across this novel for .99 for my beloved Kindle and snatched it up sight unseen, knowing nothing of its history. I enjoyed it immensely and will seek out more of Ed Lacy's writing.

#12: Still River by Harry Hunsicker

Dallas P.I. Lee Oswald (no, a different one) hits the bad streets of the city to find out what happened to the missing younger brother of a high school friend in Harry Hunsicker's debut noir Still River.

Hunsicker writes a solidly plotted mystery as Oswald tangles with everyone from powerful real estate developers down to menacing street dealers, all hinging on a plot to land a future Olympics site in downtown Dallas. Oswald is an interesting enough detective character, with a more interesting supporting cast, neither adding not subtracting from the genre. Hunsicker gets points for trying to make Dallas a character in the story, the way Walter Mosley has with L.A. and Joseph Wambaugh did to some degree with New York.

I found this on a swap shelf at a retirement community while visiting my in-laws in Florida and read it over the course of a few days.

#11: Hunter's Moon by Randy Wayne White

Marine biologist Doc Ford--sort of a cross between Indiana Jones and Doc from Steinbeck's Cannery Row--finds himself in the middle of an assassination attempt on a dying former President and gets drawn into political intrigue in Randy Wayne White's Hunter's Moon.

Doc Ford is the hero of a long-running series of thrillers that I honestly didn't know existed until I happened upon this paperback on a swap shelf in a retirement community in Florida. I took a chance on it because most of the action takes place within a stone's throw of where I happened to be, visiting my in-laws.

White writes in a straightforward style and features interesting characters and plotting. The story moved at a lightning pace, ending in a dramatic stand at the Panama Canal. I enjoyed it enough to consider reading more of White's work, after consuming this one in about two days poolside; but that might be the best place to read one of these.

#10: The Star Ruby Contract by Philip Atlee

Nullifier Joe Gall goes back to Southeast Asia to settle a few scores in The Star Ruby Contract, part of Philip Atlee's swingin' spy series.

Gold Medal books of the 60s-70s can't be read with the same PC eye used on contemporary literature, but this outing for Joe Gall--with its treacherous Asians, traitorous hippies, and subservient women--might be even less palatable than some of the entries I have read in this long-running series.

But Atlee writes in a loose, funny style, with a seeming first-hand knowledge of place and politics of the time period. Atlee always offers memorable plotting and situations, including in this story a knowing nod to Ian Fleming's creation with a high-stakes poker game between the blue-collar Gall and a drunken priest in a jungle hut surrounded by nubile natives.

I enjoy the Joe Gall series and pick them up steadily. This one I bought in a big lot of pulp I nabbed off of ebay some time ago and have been working through as the mood hits me.

#9: Dexter by Design by Jeff Lindsay

Cheery blood spatter expert for the Miami Police by day--and serial killer by night--Dexter Morgan finds himself in the middle of a string of murders that cross over from the art world to the center of Florida tourism in the fourth thriller from Jeff Lindsay, Dexter by Design.

Fans of the TV series might find the Dexter of the books a little more cold-hearted and the storytelling a bit more chilling, though the basic premise--a serial killer trained by his cop foster father to only kill bad guys--is more or less intact. But the TV series has veered away from the books, with significant changes in who lives or dies, and other plot points.

I felt the first two books in the series were pretty strong, but the third a strange misfire, moving from straight crime to a supernatural plot.

Thankfully, Dexter by Design ignores that aspect of the third book and returns to the thriller genre. Although for the first time I seemed to be able to out-think Dexter (and the plot could have used further tuning), I felt overall that this latest novel was an improvement over the last, though not as strong as the first two outings. I am sure I will continue to read the books (less avidly), and follow the television series (more closely).

I listened to a good audiobook version on loan from Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#8: Assignment Ankara by Edward S. Aarons

Spy Sam Durrell heads into earthquake-ravaged Turkey to check on a U.S. radar station, on the Turkish-Russian border, that has gone silent; he ends up in the company of a disparate band of survivors, all of whom are double and triple crossing each other. Their escape from Turkey by military plane is short-circuited by Russian fighters, and Durrell fights for his life on the unforgiving Black Sea.

Another sturdy spy thriller from Edward S. Aarons, part of an admirable series that Aarons wrote in the 50s-60s for the less admirable Gold Medal pulp line. Aarons pens a tight little thriller and features more nuance in characters and situations than you might expect to see. A good entry in the series.

I bought this in a big chunk of Aarons novels on ebay some time ago and have been chewing through them steadily.

#7: Planet of Exile by Ursula K. LeGuin

Human colonists land on a remote planet, intending to learn whether the indigenous people can join the League of Worlds and fight an intergalactic menace; but the colonists lose contact with the League, and generations pass, with the colonists ending up facing a savage planetary threat instead.

Ursula LeGuin's Planet of Exile is the second in her loosely-connected series called The Hainish Cycle. It follows Rocannon's World, a robust high-fantasy/sci-fi mashup which I read and enjoyed recently. This novel shares many of the same themes as the colonists--branded witches by the local population--have to set aside their differences to band against shared enemies and relentless nature.

I am a big LeGuin fan and have been seeking out more of her work recently. I got this one from www.paperbackswap.com as part of a collection called Three Hainish Novels. I am sure I will read the third in this series, City of Illusions, before long.

#6: The Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick

In the far-flung future of 2010, the Earth has been devastated by nuclear war; below ground, humans continue to build robots to keep fighting on the surface, cheered on via video screen by the patriarchal leader Talbot Yancy. But Yancy is a robot, and the pleasant surface of the planet is now being held by a handful of clever marketing execs, in Philip K. Dick's post-apocalyptic outing The Penultimate Truth.

Longtime readers of this blog know I am a fan of Dick's trippy sci-fi; but though still worth reading, this ragged, raging story would probably be in my second tier of his work. Others fans of Philip K. Dick will find his usual interests in alternate histories, precognition, time travel, faceless corporations, belligerent robots and shrewish spouses all on display.

Dick never runs out of ideas, and The Penultimate Truth is no exception; though I don't think all of the details hang together quite as tightly as some other works. Good food for thought, as always.

I snagged this one off of www.paperbackswap.com and carried it with me everywhere until I finished it.

#5: London Boulevard by Ken Bruen

Low-level thug fresh from jail lands a handyman job (of sorts) with a fading stage actress and her mysterious butler in Ken Bruen's London Boulevard.

Ken Bruen is a hard-boiled Irish crime writer whose novels about quasi-detective Jack Taylor I have enjoyed for a while; but they are so relentlessly cold-blooded I usually like to leave a little space between reading them.

In perhaps Bruen's only nod to whimsy (that I'm aware of), this stand-alone novel is based on one of my favorite films, Sunset Boulevard, recast for the hard-bitten underworld.

Strange as it sounds, it works, and allows Bruen to riff on other pop culture references from books, movies, and music, giving this noir a looser feel.

A good entry point to Ken Bruen and an enjoyable read overall. Recommended.

I checked this out from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana and read most of it in a single snowbound day.

#4: Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

Frank Minna is a former minor criminal trying to become a major private eye in Jonathan Lethem's detective novel Motherless Brooklyn. But Lethem always bends genres and upends expectations, so Minna is dispatched in the early going, leaving his sidekick, an orphan suffering from Tourette's Syndrome, to find Minna's killer.

Very fine, offbeat novel from Lethem, paying homage to Raymond Chandler the way some of his other novels are nods to greats like Philip Dick (Gun, with Occasional Music), Steve Gerber (Fortress of Solitude), and so on. I enjoy how Lethem always writes a fully-realized worldview featuring Brooklyn past and present, which adds a lot to his work.

I am a big fan of Lethem and liked this novel about as well as I thought I would. Recommended.

I borrowed this book from my brother a long while ago, and is my weakness, took a long time to read it and return it.

#3: Assignment Treason by Edward S. Aarons

Spy Sam Durell goes undercover to root out a traitor, though through the machinations of a fiery redhead (is there any other kind?) is branded a traitor himself in Edward S. Aarons' Assignment Treason.

I have found that Aarons' work is far above the usual Gold Medal pulp fare and reads even better upon rediscovery. I would compare him favorably to Donald Hamilton (and his Matt Helm novels) of roughly the same period; hard-nosed writing and surprisingly politically nuanced plots.

This one, written in the late 50s, features a red-baiting Texas senator in the Joe McCarthy vein with a skewed plan to nuke away detente before the U.S. gets too soft. The paperback sports one of those memorable Gold Medal covers, with Sam Durell fishing a nude woman out of the surf (which to their credit actually happens in the novel as an angry, obese naked woman attacks them both--you just have to read it). But the content inside is quite solid throughout.

I bought this in a giant ebay lot of Gold Medal books featuring Aarons and Philip Atlee and others and have been working my way through the enjoyable stack.

#2: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

In The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins introduces the reader to a dystopian future where teen "tributes" are forced to act out a televised gladiatorial combat for the enjoyment of the debauched capitol's citizens; in the end, one tribute's act of defiance makes her the inadvertent winner, and sets the stage for Catching Fire.

In the sequel, our reluctant hero is sent on a "Victory Tour" through the formerly rebellious districts, only to find that she is becoming the rallying point for a new rebellion. Behind the scenes, the machinery begins moving to pitch her back into the arena, even as forces begin to mass against the capitol.

Collins borrows a little bit from a lot of places from The Giver to Lord of the Flies and a half-dozen more, but it all goes by at such a brisk pace that it remains interesting. This outing spends a little more time developing a love triangle between the protagonist, a cerebral tribute, and a smoldering woodsman back home, for those interested in a little Twilight flair.

Despite bringing to mind other novels, it has enjoyments of its own, and I devoured it rather quickly.

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

#1: House Dick by E. Howard Hunt

The house detective in a big Washington hotel helps a damsel in distress and ends up in the middle of robbery, extortion, and murder in E. Howard Hunt's muscular noir House Dick.

I am a fan of the Hard Case Crime line, which brings back forgotten pulps with lurid new covers, the perfect place for this story of the lost world of house detectives, hat-check girls, newsies, and lunch counter short-order cooks.

In the stranger than fiction category, this one comes from the pen of E. Howard Hunt, Watergate conspirator and very competent and prolific genre writer (under a number of pseudonyms). I have picked him up wherever I come across him and have always found his writing solid.

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

2009 In Review

This was the second year in a row that I vowed to read 50 books in a single calendar year. Somehow I was able to squeeze in 52. In retrospect, I had several snowbound days and a handful of beach days that helped up the numbers a bit. I could have used a few more beach days and less snow days but all's well that ends well.

After swearing off at the end of 2008, I think I will go for a hat trick and try to read 50 books again in 2010. I am one of those people that have four or five books going at once and I don't see that slacking off any. I ended 2009 reading Assignment Treason by Edward S. Aarons, The Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick, House Dick by E. Howard Hunt, Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem and Tamar by Mal Peet (which hopefully will all give me a good head start on 2010).

In the meantime, here are my five favorite books that I read in 2009 and five honorable mentions. If I were to write this list again tomorrow, the top three would probably stay the same but everything else would undoubtedly be up for grabs.

Top Five Reads of 2009:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis.

The Murderer Vine by Shepard Rifkin.

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill.

An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe.

Five more:

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami.

Babylon Babies by Maurice G. Dantec.

Citizen Vince by Jess Walter.

Missing by Karen Alvtegen.

Real World by Natsuo Kirino.

As always, happy reading.

#52: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

In a dystopian future U.S., a totalitarian central government forces the formerly rebellious outer districts to offer teenage "tributes' in a nationally televised fight to the death in Suzanne Collins' young adult sci fi outing The Hunger Games.

Collins throws in a little of everything from Lord of the Flies to The Long Walk to The Giver, and astute readers will probably find more stories that one could draw parallels from. But The Hunger Games tools along under its own steam, and has interesting characters and situations. I was a bit surprised, however, that despite its young adult label there is a very high body count, and there are plenty of stabbings, shootings, maulings, and general mayhem that skip through its pages.

This novel is reported to be the first of a trilogy, and I am interested in finding the next one to know what happens next (especially as this ends on almost a cliffhanger). I bought this for my beloved Kindle with some Christmas money and read it over two snowy days.

#51: 9 Dragons by Michael Connelly

L.A. police detective Harry Bosch investigates a convenience store robbery that seems to have triad connections in Michael Connelly's latest thriller 9 Dragons.

I have been a longtime Connelly fan and find his Harry Bosch series one of the best contemporary mystery series (along with Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins stories). After a bit of a lull, his last several novels have come back strong.

This one is a real change of pace, as Bosch's ex-wife and daughter, now living in Hong Kong, get caught up in the action when the daughter goes missing. Bosch immediately takes off for Hong Kong and ends up on a nightmarish journey as the clock ticks and the bodies pile up.

9 Dragons is especially high octane, and I have always enjoyed Connelly's clipped journalistic prose. A good jumping on point for thriller readers but more rewarding for longtime fans.

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

#50: The Long Fall by Walter Mosley

Extremely tarnished P.I. Leonid McGill tries to go straight (or at least less crooked) when he gets wrapped up in multiple revenge plots in Walter Mosley's The Long Fall.

Mosley is one of my favorite contemporary mystery authors, and I have found his Easy Rawlins novels consistently good. In that series, Mosley traces the adventures of an L.A.-based quasi-detective from the end of World War II through the Red Scare and to the Watts riots and beyond. The political and social milieu of the Rawlins series adds much to the storytelling.

Here McGill is a contemporary detective, on the other side of the country in New York. And where the Rawlins series is shot through with hints of Chester Himes and Ross Macdonald McGill is much more Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Mosley's writing is equally admirable here and I thought this was a great start for what I hope is a new series.

I am glad I reached 50 books this year with one of my favorite writers.

I listened to a very good audiobook version of this on loan from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana.

#49: The Kar-Chee Reign by Avram Davidson

In the far-flung future, Earth's citizens have left its depleted shores for space, and those staying behind have, over the centuries, devolved back to a Bronze Age state. Then, suddenly, an alien invasion arrives to pick the planet's bones in Avram Davidson's genre-bending The Kar-Chee Reign.

I have credited Davidson for my sudden interest in what I used to call "hippie-fi" after years of reading about lantern-jawed space heroes via Heinlein, Asimov, and those type of writers. From Davidson I decided I would take on Philip K. Dick, John Brunner, Samuel R. Delany, and others, and I haven't looked back.

The book that set me on that fateful journey was Rogue Dragon, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out this book was the prequel. In it, a group of makeshift heroes, proficient with bow and club and rousing speeches, outsmart the alien science of the insectoid invaders.

Avram Davidson is a solid storyteller, and used some interesting socio-political underpinnings to prop up his story.

I got this book from http://www.paperbackswap.com/, an Ace Double which has Ursula LeGuin's very fine, similiarly-themed Rocannon's World (which I recently finished) on the flip. It may be the best combined Ace Double I've read.

#48: Citizen Vince by Jess Walter

On the eve of the 1980 presidential election, a semi-reformed criminal in the Witness Protection Program makes one last attempt to bury his past in Jess Walter's darkly comic crime novel Citizen Vince.

With its engaging characters, spot-on dialogue, and sense of time and place (early 80s Spokane) Walter brings to mind some of the best work of Elmore Leonard, Lawrence Block, and Ed McBain. Really fine writing--especially in creating a parallel story between our protagonist's troubles and the Reagan/Carter race--gives Citizen Vince a more literary bent.

I plucked this novel out of a 25-cent library book sale with no preconceived notions and found it to be highly enjoyable and engaging read. A cut above for mystery fans.

#47: Four Kinds of Rain by Robert Ward

A broke but noble activist and therapist decides he's sick of both titles when he sees a chance to steal a priceless work of art from an unstable patient in Robert Ward's riveting modern noir Four Kinds of Rain.

I haven't found a lot of noir that I liked since the great Gold Medal era of pulp writing, but Ward's novel belongs on the list of contemporary classics. It compares favorably to another modern favorite of mine, Scott Smith's A Simple Plan, which features literary writing with genre trappings. And Jim Thompson himself couldn't frown upon the unreliable narrator depicted here, whose vast narcissism and cold rationalization of his actions cause the events to unravel in the bloody final chapters.

I found this one on the $1 goodbye shelf at the local Books a Million while out Christmas shopping and devoured it in a couple of settings. Recommended for thriller fans.