Grifter's Game ***

*** Grifter's Game, Lawrence Block, 1961



This is the first book Block got published under his own name. He does noir as good as anyone, and this novel has all the classic elements, not the least of which is the tone. Joe has the right mix of canny intelligence and world-weary wisdom. Of course, that doesn't save him from falling under the spell of Mona.

If you're a fan of noir, you should check this one out.

Buck Fever ***

*** Buck Fever, Ben Rehder, 2002


During the course of a discussion about a future writing project I have in mind, Tosh mentioned I should read this author from Blanco. So I did.

It's a bit of a slapstick a R-rated comedy involving poachers, rednecks, Columbians, an opportunistic ex lobbyist, and game warden, inspired by Carl Hiaason, who is also on my to-be-read shelf.

Rehder has racked up some impressive credits, from multiple Edgar award nominations to best-of-the-year lists in multiple periodicals.

If you like wacky stuff, you should check it out.

The Grove ***

*** The Grove, John Rector, 2011

This is one funky book, a fascinating look into the disintegration of a mind when a guy with a  mental/mood disorder goes off his meds.

It starts when the farmer finds the body of a high-school girl in a grove beyond his cornfield and doesn't go to the authorities. Soon he's having conversations with the girl, which degenerate further into psychosis as the body decomposes.

It sounds morbid, but it's actually fascinating. Rector knows what he's doing. I'll have to check out his other books.

The Stones Cry Out ***

*** The Stones Cry Out, Sibella Giorello, 2007

I've seen Sibella here and there on the interwebs, but when I saw her interview on Writers On Reading, I realized I'd never read any of her books. So I jaunted down to my favorite Kindle store and got the first in the series.

This book won the Christy for first novel, which is saying something when your competition is Tosca Lee! It's a good story (Raleigh Harmon, forensic geologist turned FBI special agent in Richmond, VA) with good pacing and good characters and a great start for a series. You get a feel for the history of the town, the vanishing Southern culture, the miasma of racial tension. And then there's the case nobody wants solved except for Raliegh. Not even the mayor or Raliegh's boss.

I'm definitely reading the whole series, and anything else Sibella writes.

Boost ***

*** Boost, Steve Brewer, 2004

This was a fun read. Snappy dialog, good pacing, great characters. Steve does the Bubba Mabry P.I. series, which I will have to check out, but Boost is evidently a standalone. Too bad. I'd like to see more of Sam Hill. (Yep, his name is Sam Hill, but not one "What in the Sam Hill?" joke in the book. Go figure. ;-)

So, check it out. Or else.

True Detective ***

*** True Detective, Max Allan Collins, 1983

Collins can write, which comes as no surprise. He wrote Road to Perdition. This was an early attempt to reinvent the noir tradition. As indicated in the notes, his mentor and his agent said he needed to rewrite it because it was in first-person and over 100,000 words. His other mentor, Mickey Spillane (!!), called it the best private eye novel he'd ever read. Collins fired his agent, finished the novel, and it sold to the first publisher his new agent shopped it to. He went on to write 18 Heller novels, so far.

I have likes and dislikes with this novel, mostly likes. Great noir vibe, first person voice nails it. Great story woven into actual historical events with actual people from 1932. Buckley did this with the Blackford Oakes espionage novels and I ate them up. Collins brings it with the Heller series.

My only dislike relates to excessive backstory, which is info-dumped in the early chapters. He could have addressed the word-count objection by jettisoning whole chapters and weaving the essential information into the narrative.

Chapter 1 opens as it should, and develops as it should. Then we hit Chapter 2, which covers the Heller family history going back 100 years to his great-grandfather and working forward to the shooting at the end of Chapter 1. Twenty-plus pages of pace-killing back story. This happens in a few other places, to the point I skimmed to get back to the story.

But the story itself is excellent. It's worth getting and reading. And who knows, you may like the family history and the tour of Prohibition Chicago and not skim at all.

The Adventures of Gerard ***

*** The Adventures of Gerard, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903

I ran across the rumor of the Gerard books somewhere and hunted down a Kindle version on Project Gutenburg. These satiric stories, which originally appeared in The Strand from 1894 to 1903, chronicle the career of Brigadier Etienne Gerard as told by himself. The style is thick and dated, but for one willing to dig, there is plenty of comedy of a dry sort.

I just discovered a terminally goofy 70s movie based on the character on Netflix. We shall see.

Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems ***

*** Horoscopes for the Dead: Poems, Billy Collins, 2010

For a guy who doesn't do poetry, I seem to be reading a lot of it. It's all Garrison Keillor's fault. He read What She Said and I was hooked. Click through and read it and you will be too. So, I rushed right out to my local Amazon bookmark and got a copy of the book that contained the poem.

I liked a lot of the poems. I read it through, twice, just to make sure I didn't miss anything, and bookmarked several of them. There's a lot to like in Collins, who was the US poet laureate from 2001 to 2003.

Once I get done with the novels in my queue, I might try my hand at a few stanzas. Here's a sample of a poem I wrote fifteen years ago.

The earthworm has a bunch of hearts
Which makes him romantic, sorta
I would have to be one giant heart
To love you like aorta

You're welcome.

The Serpent's Shadow ***

*** The Serpent's Shadow, Rick Riordan, 2012

I made the mistake of re-reading The Last King of Texas a while back, after reading 11 of his YA novels. I love Rick and as a former middle-school teacher he definitely knows his audience when it comes to YA fiction. But even more I love the depth and richness of his Tres Navarre PI series.

But this is about Rick's twelfth YA novel, the most recent in the Kane Chronicles. There's not much to say beyond it fits in well with his other YA work. Sassy attitude, nonstop action, cheeky gods and demigods. If it's an end to the Kane stories, it's a fitting end, but it leaves the door open for another book or three.

All Night Lingo Tango ***

*** All Night Lingo Tango, Barbara Hamby, 2009

I've never been much on poetry. It must be that I lack the sophistication required to appreciate it. Whatever the cause, I don't seek it out. But for the past year or so I've been listening to the Writer's Almanac online, going back into the archives. That's where I ran across Barbara Hamby and a two poems in particular, Hear My Prayer, O Lord . . . and I Beseech Thee, O Yellow Pages, which are selections from Nine Sonnets from the Psalms. I liked them so well, I hunted down the book they came from, All Night Lingo Tango, and got it for the Kindle.

I enjoyed most of it, but my poetry-challenged brain didn't embrace everything. It wasn't until I was finished and read the notes that I discovered that some of the poems are abecedarians, a special form of acrostic, in which the initial letters of words beginning each line spell out the alphabet in order. Hamby went one further and followed two alphabets, one going forward at the beginning of each line and another going backward at the end. She calls these double helix abecedarians.

That's a lot of work. I think I'll stick to novels.

The Sins of the Fathers ***

*** The Sins of the Fathers, Lawrence Block, 1976

In my not-so-humble but quite accurate opinion, if you have a chance to read through a Lawrence Block novel, do it.

This is the first Matthew Scudder novel, written in 1976. It features a sparse, almost journalistic style with little inner monologue. All dialog and action. I liked the story, but found myself yearning for a little peek into Scudder's psyche.

Like A Confederacy of Dunces, this novel was written before political correctness took over and it's interesting to see the contrast with modern attitudes.

In addition to his novels, Block wrote books on the craft and a column in Writer's Digest for many years (which was picked up by James Scott Bell). He's over 70, but on the cutting edge of the ebook revolution. Gotta love that.

The Last Four Things ***

*** The Last Four Things, Timothy Hallinan, 1989

I discovered Hallinan on DorothyL.com, an email list for fans of detective fiction. This book is the first in the Simeon Grist series and a good start. It's a first-person novel and I like the voice of the protagonist, not quite hard boiled, but plenty tough while being somewhat cerebral. It's a good story with plenty of action and plenty of depth and I enjoyed the ride.

Here are a few quotes I picked out:

His fingers groped toward each other and met again over his stomach like five overweith pairs of illicit lovers on safe ground at last.

They were obviously ready to protect that wet red carpet with their lives, if the need arose. The one on the right had the kind of face that suggested that he hoped the need would arise, and sooner rather than later: fat, downturned lips, a short thick pug nose, and two stupid little eyes lurking close together under a bony brow-ridge that I thought had been eliminated from the gene pool several million years ago. The other one just looked dumb. 

I have only one quibble, a topic I brought up in a previous review, the SNR (story-to-noise ratio). In several places the action comes to a stop for lengthy discussions of topics that are relevant to the mystery at hand but that do not support the forward momentum of the narrative, conversations between characters about religion or philosophy or other things. Hallinan is an excellent writer and put together a fine series opener, but in my not-so-humble-but-always-accurate opinion it would have been better served by whittling these tangents and streamlining the story.

That being said, it's still worth reading, and I'll be continuing in the series. Give it a shot.

Castle Rouge ***

*** Castle Rouge, Carole Nelson Douglas, 2002


There are many tense moments in this conclusion to the story begun in Chapel Noir. And although Nell remains a bit too discursive for my taste, she is finally beginning to develop beyond the priggish prude that inhabits the earlier books. And I still find myself skimming over long sections of backstory rehearsing things we already know or "sermons" on various topics, such as gender role expectations and such.

In addition to the existing historical characters that populate previous books and this one, we add a nascent Rasputin.

Here's a nice quote: Through the fog and smoke the streets shone like a black cat's well-licked coat.

Chapel Noir ***

*** Chapel Noir, Carole Nelson Douglas, 2001

Chapel Noir is a departure from the pattern of the previous four. First, it's told from three different viewpoints. Second, it's a cliff-hanger, continued in Castle Rouge. Third, it's darker and more graphic, dealing as it does with Jack the Ripper.

It still has many of the elements that attracted me to the series:

• Extension to the Holmes canon.
• Stylistically consistent with the canon (excepting the some of the alternate viewpoint material).
• Cameo Holmes appearances, actually, fairly substantive appearances.
• Cameo appearances of historical characters (quite a few, and very cleverly done)

There continue to be, for me, some very skimmable passages of fashion, description, and back story. There are moments when Nell's obtuse naivete strains credulity and her moralizing personality begins to wear. Although, based on some dramatic developments at the end, I suspect that might be attenuated somewhat in the future. Or not.

Here is a descriptive passage I found to be particularly incisive, a description of a madame in a Paris bordello:

Her red hair was frizzled into a fright wig. Her decolletage overflowed a wasp-waisted bodice like two loaves of unbaked French bred. She had a sharp nose above a cheese-soft chin that faded into the high collar of fat cushioning her throat like a necklace of fleshy aspic. Her bead-bright eyes moved like roaches in the suet pudding of her face to study us.

Irene's Last Waltz ***

*** Irene's Last Waltz, Carole Nelson Douglas, 1994


Douglas does a great job of weaving canonical story lines into a new story, and this one is no exception. There are a lot of things happening on a lot of levels with several nice appearances of a certain personage.

One of those plot lines involves Charles Frederick Worth, the legendary designer. As a result, I resorted to a bit of skimming over the copious descriptions of fashion. YMMV.

This book was reissued as Another Scandal in Bohemia in 2003.

Irene At Large ***

*** Irene At Large, Carole Nelson Douglas, 1992

I like it when an extracononical story pulls in either contemporary references to historical figures or canonical characters.

In this installment of the Irene Adler saga, Douglas pulls in a character from the Holmes story "The Case of the Empty House" in which Holmes thwarts his own assassination by the second most dangerousm man in England, Colonel Sebastian Moran. She does an excellent job of integrating the story line with what will happen five years later in the Doyle story, even explaining why Watson acts as if he's never heard of Moran later.

One thing I'm not as much a fan of is the descriptions of fashion and extended banter. I expect female readers may have a different opinion, which is good since the majority of readers are female, but I find myself skimming sections that don't deal with the plot.

This book was reissued as A Soul of Steel in 2006.

Good Morning, Irene ***

*** Good Morning Irene, Carole Nelson Douglas, 1990


Two years ago I read Good Night, Mr. Holmes. I said I couldn't wait to read some more, but I did. Wait, that is. And now I've read some more and I'm glad I did.

As in the previous book, there is a brush with Sherlock Holmes, but it's not the focus of the story. Rather, the mystery of tattooed corpses missing a finger lead the trio (Irene, Godfrey, and chronicler Nell) from Paris to Monaco. Entertaining reading for Holmes fans and others.

Here are a few quotes:

"The longer I spoke the more convinced I became that I was hanging a sheep for a lamb."

I liked that one because of how she mangles the saying, "Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb." into hanging the animals.

"I will say this: that while in the relationships between men and women there is much stuff of comedy and tragedy, there can be found in the marital bed an intimacy that mingles the best of the human and the divine."

FYI, the book was reissued as The Adventuress in 2003.

Brain Rules ***

*** Brain Rules, John Medina, 2008

Stumbled across this book somewhere and used it as my workout read. It definitely passed the Elliptical Test. The book is divided into 12 rules, such as:

• 1. Exercise boosts brain power. (How appropriate!)
• 4. We don't pay attention to boring things.
• 8. Stressed brains don't learn the same way.

The research is fascinating and the writing is engaging. And it has many applications. It will change the way I write.

One common bit of writing advice is to engage all the senses. Don't just describe how it looks, but also how it sounds or smells or feels. The research bears out this advice. Tests show that when you read a word involving smell, the same part of your brain activates as when you actually smell it. So by writing to all the senses, you stimulate more of the brain, which makes it a richer experience and therefore more memorable.

And that's just one cool idea I got from the book.

The Wednesday Wars ***

*** The Wednesday Wars, Gary D. Schmidt, 2009

I'm not sure what got me to read this book. I've heard good things about it, but I'm not a regular reader of YA fiction. But somehow it ended up on my Kindle and I read it.

Excellent book for anyone, regardless of age. It's set roughly around the same time as Welcome to Fred. Here are a few quotes that stuck with me:

• I never thought being in seventh grade would mean so many death threats.
• It was what eighth graders whose career goal was the state penitentiary did.

A Geography of Time ***

*** A Geography of Time, Robert Levine, 1997

This nifty little book has a wealth of insights into the pace and quality of life as it pertains to the time-related aspects of our worldview. It's filled with empirical research and personal anecdotes from the author. There are quite a few surprises and a section on suggestions of how to incorporate aspects of other cultures to create a more balanced approach to life when it comes to the use and misuse of time. It's worth a read.