WITCH HIGH

WITCH HIGH
Edited by Denise Little
DAW Books
307 pages

When I started reading, back in the mid-1950s, through to end of my high school days in 1964, there were still dozens of periodicals that published short fiction. Everything from Redbook to Argosy and the Saturday Evening Post were available as outlets for short stories. Today those magazines are gone and with them, to a large degree, short fiction. Happily there is still one mainstay of this literary format still offering up these bite-sized nuggets of story telling and that is the anthology. One such collection is WITCH HIGH, edited by Denise Little.

The theme of the book revolves around a school for witches, Salem Township Public High School # 4. As most of us will attest, surviving high school is a rite of passion all Americans have had to endure and the experiences culled from those four years often times set the course, good or bad, for the remainder of our lives. Now imagine having to handle those awkward years and magical powers at the same time.

This is the central challenge to the characters in the 14 stories that make up this truly delicious anthology. There is not a dud in the bunch, each deftly written with a keen ear and eye for the angst-ridden lives of the typical teenager in today’s culture. Of the fourteen contributors, I was only familiar with two; Bill McKay and Diane Duane. McKay, oddly enough the only male writer on board, delivers the darkest tale with a poignant, heart-warming end. I’m familiar with much of Duane’s Star Trek fiction and she has the final tale in the book, which caps it all off wonderfully.

Other personal favorites included “Domestic Magic” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and “You Got Served” by Ester M. Friesner. I also appreciated the fact that not all the stories starred the students of Witch High, but several featured the teachers and their daily trials and tribulations. All in all, WITCH HIGH is a place Harry Potter and his chums would feel right at home at, and I believe, so will you.

NO HOUSE LIMIT

NO HOUSE LIMIT
By Steve Fisher
Hard Case Crime
218 pages

HCC promotes this particular book on the front cover as “A novel of Las Vegas.”
Which is exactly what this is, a time-capsule look back at the glitter capital as it existed back in the 1950s, long before the city powers opted to make it a family-friendly vacation destination.

Joe Martin is an army veteran who owns and operates the Rainbow’s End casino without any help from the syndicate. He is an annoyance they want eliminated. They hire a big time gambler named Bello to break the house; that is winning all the casino’s funds in a marathon game of craps. Martin is no naïve rookie and long before Bellow sets foot in his establishment, he becomes aware that an assault is imminent. Martin’s fear is that while he is dealing with the mercenary high roller, the syndicate will attack at him on other fronts.

Luckily, Martin has two loyal friends who won’t let that happen. The first is Sprig, his tough chief of security and Mal Davis, a lounge singer/pianist who is afraid his career is going nowhere fast. As the syndicate unleashes its various strategies to bring down Rainbow’s End, both Sprig and Davis soon find themselves soldiers in Joe Martin’s war.

Then, as if things couldn’t be more tense, enter Sunny Guido, a beautiful grade school teacher from California who entrances the cynical Martin and first time in his life has him experiencing love. But is she the real deal, or clever plant sent by the syndicate to mess with his mind?

I’ve personally never had any desire to gamble nor visit that glitzy city out in the middle of the Nevada dessert. Still, after reading this excellent story, I can better appreciate the fascination of people for this one-of-a-kind sin city. Fisher creates truly great characters and drives his narrative with ease, building suspense slowly until the finale erupts across the last chapter like a breath of much need fresh air. NO HOUSE LIMIT is a gem of a book and I recommend it highly.

THE NAVIGATOR

THE NAVIGATOR
By Clive Cussler
& Paul Kemprecos
Berkley Novel
529 pages

Readability is a word you don’t trip over every day. Found in the umbrella definition of the word read, it more or less describes the ease or difficulty of any text to be deciphered. I bring this up because there are clearly books whose readability far outshines others such as all of Clive Cussler’s adventure novels. His writing is the literary equivalent of salted nuts, once you eat one, you are compelled to eat more. Beginning with page one of THE NAVIGATOR, I knew I was once again in friendly territory, as these pulp inspired thrillers have been entertaining readers for almost two generations ever since the paperback publication of Cussler’s THE PACIFIC VORTEX, his first Dirk Pitt adventure. That was way back in 1983; the hardback original having appeared the year before. The thing is it was the mass paperback editions that found, via word of mouth, Cussler’s audience and pulled them into becoming avid, lifelong fans.

I confess to coming in late on the fun. Several of my writing colleagues had been telling me for several years that Dirk Pitt was the “new” Doc Savage, that most famous of world trotting pulp adventurers. I procrastinated until the release of Pitt’s seventh outing, CYCLOPS. Why that one? Because the paperback cover sported a dirigible and I am just a bonafide sucker for airships. Once I’d read the book, I immediately realized how terrific the concept of Pitt and his NUMA (National Underwater & Marine Agency) was and went out and found the first six and devoured them speedily.

Like the pulps they evolved from, Cussler’s books are filled with exotic locations, dastardly villains and near super human heroes who always save mankind just in the nick of time. Each is filled with accurate historical backgrounds, suspense, action humor and imagination beyond belief. Now this kind of rampant success had one drawback. The demand for new stories was never-ending and poor Cussler was, after all, just one man. He could only write so much and still eat, drink and live his life like the rest of us. How could his publishers satisfy the clamor for more without killing the goose who in fact laid those golden eggs? The answer was another pulp standard, create a spin-off series and bring in another quality suspense writer.

SERPENT was published in 1999 and its credit reads, “Clive Cussler with Paul Kemprecos.” Kemprecos is a professional writer who had written several best selling novels featuring an underwater detective. Thus he was the ideal partner to work with Cussler. Together they invented another NUMA operative in Texas born Kurt Austin, who, although physically different than Pitt, is clearly cut from the same larger-than-life hero mold. There’s even a letter on the book’s first page introducing the readers to this new character and it is signed, Dirk Pitt. I have no inside clue as to how they work, but my guess would be that they develop a plot together and then Kemprecos goes off to do the actual writing. To date there have been six Kurt Austin adventures with THE NAVIGATOR being the seventh. All of them have been just as much fun as the Pitt books and this new one is certainly no exception.

These books are formulaic, but unlike other critics, I see that as their strength. Readers know what to expect and are rarely disappointed. THE NAVIGATOR begins three thousand years ago when King Solomon orders Phoenician captain to sail half way around the world to bury a sacred relic whose existence could cause havoc amongst the known civilizations of man. The tale then jumps forward to the last days of Thomas Jefferson’s Presidency and a mission assigned the famous explorer Meriwether Lewis and the beginnings of a secret organization known as the Artichoke Club.

What these divergent elements have in common is the puzzle that challenges Austin and his team as he comes to the rescue of a lovely archeologist named Carina Mechadi. In the Baghdad national museum, shortly after the American take-over, Mechadi finds a life-size statue of ancient sailor known as the Navigator. But before she can properly examine it, the statue is stolen by a group of mercenaries working for a mysterious tycoon named Balthazar. What is the secret of the statue and to what purpose does Balthazar intend to use it? THE NAVIGATOR is a convoluted, globe-spanning puzzle that will keep you turning pages late into the night. The pacing never lets up and with each new piece of the puzzle revealed, the excitement mounts exponentially until the slam-bang climax.

This is a good as modern pulp gets, and I’m hoping both Dirk Pitt and his pal, Kurt Austin, are going to be around for a long, long time. Pass the peanuts, please.

THE GOLIATH BONE

THE GOLIATH BONE
A New Mike Hammer Novel
By Mickey Spillane
With Max Allan Collins
Hartcourt Press
267 pages
Available Oct.2008

You would have expected the father of America’s toughest private-eye to go out with a bang! And he does, in this, one of the two remaining Mike Hammer books Mickey Spillane was writing at the time of his death. Thankfully his close friend, and literary protégé, Max Allan Collins was on board to complete them. It’s a loud bang of action, humor and a long fulfilled romance that had me hooked from page one.

Nobody wrote tough-guy pulp like Spillane. It was a talent that never left him over his sixty year career as a crime writer. Mike Hammer is out and about on a cold New York City winter night when trouble comes calling in the form of two young people hurrying down the street unaware they’ve picked up a menacing shadow. Never one to mind his own business, Hammer takes off after them and their mysterious pursuer and arrives in the nick of time to save them from being gunned down. Hammer never goes anywhere without his trusty Colt .45 automatic. With a dead man at his feet, and two frightened innocents, Hammer whisks them off to the security of his office and thus the tale begins.

The would-be victims are college sweethearts recently returned from a trip to Israel. After camping in the Valley of Elah, the two accidentally uncover a human femur bone the size of a railroad tie. They believe it to be the only remains of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath. The couple, Mark and Jenna, smuggle the bone out of the country by mailing it to a friend back home. Once back in New York, they retrieve it and are on their way to the university to deliver it to their respective parents who are both archeologists. Thus ends their tale at the point of being attacked by the unknown assassin and Hammer’s timely appearance. Hammer immediately realizes the political implications of their discovery and the dangers they entail, to include the botched murder attempt.

Leave it to Spillane to deliver a topical thriller, post 9-11, with Hammer ready to take on Islamic terrorists all by his lonesome. The plot moves at a fast clip and before long Hammer is embroiled with foreign dignitaries, government agents and criminal arms dealers, all the while having to protect the two young lovers. Thus the subplot of his long overdue marriage to Velda, his gorgeous, loyal secretary is truly poignant. Ever the skilled story-telling magician, Spillane pulls a few aces out his sleeve, including the reason why it has taken Hammer so long to make an honest woman of her. Their marriage and honeymoon adds a fitting chapter to Hammer’s last case. The feelings of these two characters, their enduring love and its joyful resolution reminded me of what William Faulkner called “…the truths of the heart.”

But worry not, pulp fans. Before the two can sail off into the sunset, there is still the matter of a ruthless killer who has left a trail of bodies for Hammer to follow like a grisly invitation to a climatic showdown. Mike Hammer never walked away from a case until justice had been meted out; the kind dispensed from the barrel of his .45. THE GOLIATH BONE is no exception. This is one hell of a ride you do not want to miss!

THE SACRED BOOK OF THE WEREWOLF

THE SECRET BOOK OF THE WEREWOLF
By Victor Pelevin
Viking
333 pages

The real fun of being a reviewer is the surprises you are sent by various publishers. Of course many are duds and that is to be expected. Then again a marketing editor will send along something truly unique, unlike anything you’ve ever read before. Such was the case with this outlandish novel by Russian author, Victor Pelevin. It is not a book for the tame reader who is afraid of moving out of his or her comfort zone. There are so many different facets to this book, encapsulating them is not at all easy.

A Hu-Li is a two thousand year old shapeshifting werefox from China who disguises herself as a cute and sexy fifteen year old Moscow prostitute. She seduces men so that she can absorb their life force and thus maintain her near immortality. She does this by hypnotizing them with her ginger red tail. Now if that wasn’t wild enough, A Hu-Li is also a philosopher, a follower of the Supreme Tao, a secret teaching that will supposedly transform her into the perfect being, known as the Super Werewolf, and allow her to ascend from this plane of reality to a greater one.

When A Hu-Li meets a Russian security officer named Alexander, everything in her life changes. Upon learning he is a werewolf, she falls in love with him. It is the first time she has ever felt this way towards any other living being and it sets her on a new, emotional journey to plummet the essences of her true self and place in the cosmos. As much as all of this sounds completely bizarre, Pelevin’s gift as a writer is making A Hu-Lin and her quirky fox-nature accessible and sympathetic. Once you enter her world, he pulls you along effortlessly, creating a need in the reader to reach the end and learn if this incredible creature truly will find her Nirvana.

Two things helped make reading this book a fun and challenging experience. The first is that I love philosophy and the second is that I actually spent eight amazing days in Moscow several years ago and came away with a distinct impression of the city, the country and its people. All of which Pelevin captures so perfectly. There is a melancholy Russian mindset that is afraid of true democracy and freedom, at the same time being propelled towards it by the forces of history. It is a social tragedy being played out on the world stage to this day. How it will end, only time will tell. But I can’t help but thinking, Russian writers like Victor Pelevin are the prophets sent to show their countrymen the path to that brave new world we, in America, daily take for granted.

FIFTY-TO-ONE

FIFTY-TO-ONE
By Charles Ardai
Hard Case Crime
331 pages
Available Nov. 25

Several years ago, Charles Ardai, and then partner Max Phillips, began Hard Case Crime, a publishing imprint dedicated to reviving lost pulp crime classics and showcasing new writers in the field. Now, with forty-nine truly amazing books under their belts, the debut of their 50th offering demanded something special and unique. Happily, Ardai was up to the challenge. Every chapter title in this book is taken, in order of publication, from the titles of those first fifty! I kid you not. And it is no little trick.

FIFTY-TO-ONE is one hilarious roller-coaster ride that never stops from page one to the finale. Ardai has tipped his fedora to the entire crime noir genre in this gem of a what-if tale that imagines Hard Case Crime having been started fifty years ago by a shady, unscrupulous entrepreneur named Charlie Borden. One has to wonder whimsically if he isn’t Ardai’s want-to-be alter ego as he writes him with so much conviction and panache.

One day a sweet, innocent eighteen year old girl from South Dakota arrives in New York and immediately runs afoul of this likeable hustler. Her name is Tricia and she’s smart as a whip. When Borden commissions her to write a true-life crime bio for him, he has no idea her book is going to be the catalyst that sets one of the city’s most notorious mob bosses after his hide, as well as the police. What follows is a plot with more twists and turns a bag of fresh baked pretzels. It is a thoroughly convoluted mystery tied into several sticky, but clever knots. All of which our unlikely sleuths have to unravel as they keep running through the streets and alleys of New York, always one short step ahead of mob and the law.

As crime fiction goes, FIFTY-TO-ONE may not win any prizes, but as a celebration of the entire genre, it is truly one of the most enjoyable books HCC has ever produced. Add to this fun the special full insert which reproduces all of their gorgeous covers to date and you have a book that should be a must read on everyone’s list. Personally I’m hoping when book 100 comes around, Charlie and Tricia will be back. I miss them already.

TO BATTLE BEYOND

TO BATTLE BEYOND
By C.J. Henderson
Marietta Publishing
243 pages

It isn’t often you get to review a book you helped bring about. As most of you know, aside from these reviews, I also produce pulp novels and anthologies for Airship 27 Prod.
A while back C.J. Henderson approached me with an idea he had for a book wherein a group of lesser known classic pulp heroes would band together to save the world from some horrible catastrophe. I loved the idea and encouraged C.J. to write it, which he did and here it is now available from Marietta Publishing out of Georgia. As to why we didn’t publish it is a story for a later date. What matters here is how absolutely terrific this book is.

Set in the months prior to the start of World War II, strange weather patterns fall upon America both on the west and eastern coasts. Savage, brutal storms that leave a wake of death and destruction in their paths. When several colorful characters, at divergent locales, begin to investigate these supposedly natural tragedies, they soon uncover an evil malevolent force that is anything but natural.

Within days, an occult magician named Ravenwood, summons three people to his New York apartments. They are Ellen Patrick, the crime fighting Domino Lady from California, Anthony Quinn, the blind lawyer from New York who is really the avenger known as the Black Bat and lastly, Inspector John Raymond Legrasse of New Orleans, a veteran in fighting the forces of arcane evil. This is very much the pulp version of “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” and the conceit works extremely well. Taking a bunch of second string pulp heroes, Henderson ties them to the world of H.P.Lovecraft’s Ancient Gods myth by brining in Legrasse, a character he’s used many, many times in other horror orientated adventures.

Henderson is brilliant at capturing personalities with only a few words and I found myself seeing these familiar heroes in an entirely new and exciting new light. The interaction between them is fun and as always C.J. doesn’t scrimp on the action. There’s plenty of it, all in the rousing traditional bloody pulps mode. So if, like me, you truly enjoy pulp action and adventure, pick this one up. Oh, and did I mention it has an introduction by some pulp fan named Fortier?

TWO BY PETER RABE

ANATOMY OF A KILLER –
A SHROUD FOR JESSO
By Peter Rabe
Stark House Noir Classics
308 pages

This is the second Stark House title I’ve read and I remain impressed big time. Each of their titles not only offers up two classic noir pulp novels, but they are accompanied by informative articles and essays on the authors’ lives. This volume has a closing piece on Rabe by Donald Westlake. If you are a fan of this genre, you should be hunting up each and every one of these books. They do not disappoint.

In ANATOMY OF A KILLER, Rabe delivers a cutting edge noir thriller with his use language. His sentences are short, stabbing declarative burst that keep the reader glued to the action. At the same time, he keeps his main character, Sam Jordan in sharp focus. Jordan is a man comfortable with the routines of his life as a hired gun for the mob. When, immediately after a successful hit, he is given another assignment, things begin to unravel quickly. The job must be carried out immediately without any preliminary scouting having been done. It is up to Jordan to personally case out the intended mark; something he has never done before.

Thrown off of his established routine, Jordan finds himself floundering. He begins to have doubts about his life and career. All of which are then compounded when he meets and falls for Betty, a simple girl working as a waitress. Jordan begins to see other futures for himself and these self-induced dreams cloud his work. He botches the hit and soon his employers are wondering if he’s become a loose canon.

This is not an easy book to grasp, as I indicated earlier. Rabe’s style is lean and brutal. Yet it enthralls and pulls the reader into a tightly woven web until you find yourself unable to put the book down, desperately demanding to know Jordan’s ultimate fate. This is classic noir; one of the best I’ve ever encountered.

A SHROUD FOR JESSO is a book that starts down one trail and quickly veers off into a totally different one. After World War II, Jack Jesso is a New York tough guy who has been muscled out of his own syndicate by the Mob. Angry and wanting some payback, he is manipulated into working for Kator, a former Nazi aristocrat who is selling American weapons secrets to the Soviets. Finding himself kidnapped, Jesso manages to avoid being executed by bluffing his captors into believing he has information vital to their operation. Once they arrive in Germany, again the plot takes a sharp twist when Jesso meets the Kator’s beautiful sister, Rennette.

A classic femme fatale, Rennette soon becomes Jesso’s overriding obsession, to possess her, and her brother’s money. She is ultimately his downfall, as he is blind to the vulnerability she has created in him. People, like tigers, don’t change their spots. In the end Jesso isn’t as smart as he thought he was and his doom predicable from the second he locks eyes on the woman. Again, noir fiction with style and grace and plenty of punch. A certified psychologist, writer Peter Rabe knew what made people tick and he explored those dark, twisted shadows in his amazing stories.

THE GHOSTS BRIGADES

THE GHOST BRIGADES
By John Scalzi
Tor Books
343 pages

I’ve always been a sucker for military sci-fi. A few years ago someone gave me a copy of John Scalzi’s book, OLD MAN’S WAR and I devoured it. Scalzi envisiones a future wherein man has reached the stars and found them populated by some truly hostile aliens Defending human colonists are the Colonial Defense Forces, made up of enhanced soldiers recruited from the ranks of the earth’s senior citizens population. Seniors are given the chance to have their consciousness transferred into new, stronger bodies genetically altered for peak performance. Their blood is made up of nano-bots for quick healing and each CDF soldier is implanted with a pea sized computer directly into their brain. These Brain-Pals aid the newly awaken warrior cope with his new form and the savage wars he or she is about to participate in.

Towards the end of that first book, we learned that even among CDF troops there existed an even tougher branch known as Special Forces. Many of the seniors who signed on to participate in the CDF actually died before they could be fully intergrated into their new bodies. From these deceased volunteers, the CDF had taken DNA samples. From these DNA samples they proceed to clone new, more advanced bodies. Unlike the CDF recruits who had their personal psyches transferred to their new host bodies, clone warriors are born without any past identities. During the cloning process, Special Forces are genetically engineered to be the most loyal, professional soldiers ever imagined. Yet they must evolve new personalities. Realborns call them the Ghost Brigades.

In this adventure, second of a trilogy, the CDF finds itself dealing with a traitorous scientist named Charles Boutin, an expert in consciousness mapping and Brain-Pals. For his own unfathomable reasons, Boutin flees his labs and seeks political asylum with an enemy alien race. Afraid of what Boutin might give this race, CDF generals are frantic to discover the meaning of his defection and how much secret data he escaped with. When it is discovered Boutin left behind a copy of his own consciousness, a daring plan is devised to imprint that very consciousness onto a newly hatched Ghost Brigade clone. Of course it is a double-edged sword. Will the clone really be able to access the scientists store of knowledge and solve their puzzle or will he evolve into a second traitor and betray them?

Once Jared Dirac is brought to life, the book kicks into high gear as we follow the newborn’s entry into the Special Forces excellerated training program. By the use of their hyper-fast Brain-Pals, Dirac and his team can communicate instantaneously, transferring huge amounts of data in micro-seconds. Jared is just a regular member of the squad until the day, after returning from a particularly harrowing mission, he suddenly has flashes of Charles Boutin’s memories. These are so vivid as to detail the traitor’s current whereabouts. Once Jared tells his superiors, a mission to retrieve Boutin is quickly conceived. Dirac will be a part of a Special Forces unit sent deep into enemy space to retrieve the turncoat scientist.

Scalzi never lets up on the suspense and action. His story is both exciting and stimulating as his delves into themes of personal identity in regards to manufactured people with only copies of consciousness. Do they possess souls apart from their originating DNA codes, or do such things as soul truly exist? What really makes up the mind? All of these ideas are brilliantly interwoven through this grand, all-out action saga. THE GHOST BRIGADES is one of the finest science fiction books I’ve ever enjoyed. Now it’s time to go find that third and final chapter of this truly fantastic series.

SPEAKS THE NIGHTBIRD

SPEAKS THE NIGHTBIRD
By Robert McCammon
Pocket Books
792 pages

Those of you familiar with this column will be aware that I’ve already reviewed the first half of this book. This strange chain of events came about when I’d purchased the paperback edition which contained only the first half, sub-titled Judgment of the Witch. At the time I bought the book, I was unaware it was incomplete. Again, I don’t want to retread old ground here as in that initial review I made my displeasure very clear to one and all. Here was a book I enjoyed immensely and was now forced to seek out its second half.

Several attempts to order on-line proved fruitless and I invariably resorted to visiting a local Barnes & Noble to order part two; Evil Unveiled. As it would turn out, the store clerk screwed up my request and put in a order for the trade paperback version which contained the entire novel! And they let me have it for the price of the smaller paperback. Amazing. So I came home with this volume and promptly took the incomplete paperback and threw it in the trash. Again, a pox on the publisher for releasing such a great read in so ridiculous a fashion.

That said, the remaining half of the book is just as powerful and the first. Young legal clerk Matthew Corbett is frantic to save innocent Rachel Howarth from being burned at the stake for witchcraft. Convinced there is a criminal mastermind plotting to destroy this new colony town, Matthew gambles everything, including his own future, in a desperate gamble to save the woman and unmask the true villain.

McMammon is one of the finest American writers working today. He breathes such life into this pre-American world of those struggling early colonists who daily wrestled a hostile, frontier environment to make a new world for themselves. His research is remarkable the cast of characters rich and captivating. SPEAKS THE NIGHTBIRD is the first in a new series from this talented tale-spinner and you should not miss it. But please, once more. Make sure you buy the complete novel and don’t go through the hell this reviewer traveled to finish it.

SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY

SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY
By Donald E. Westlake
Hard Case Crime
253 pages

Veteran crime writer Donald E. Westlake can write gripping, tough stories with the best of them. Hell, he is one of the best of “them.” But then again he can whip up a dandy mystery, infuse it with his own unique brand of humor and have you laughing out loud in no time flat. Such is the case with this comedy about a New York City hack named Chet (he despises Chester) Conway who, in one turn of destiny’s wheel, goes from being a lucky gambler whose horse came in to a desperate murder suspect hunted down by two very dangerous criminal gangs.

Chet’s long shot nag wins him close to a thousand dollars. A nice pay-offs for a fellow use to winning and losing tens and twenties. Believing his ship has finally come in, he arrives at his bookie’s apartment only to discover the guy has been shot to death and his money swiped. Chet does the right thing and cooperates with the police but that doesn’t stop two rival mobs from believing he’s somehow involved and is now a liability to their organization. Enter the dead man’s sister, a lovely, vengeance obsessed blonde named Abbie, (she despises Abigail) and suddenly Chet is not only scrambling for his life, but now he’s teamed up with a tough-as-nails beauty with a habit of attracting trouble.

By the time a bullet creases his skull, sparing his life by inches, our hero starts to wish he’d never made that bet in the first place. Caught in the middle between the gangs and the cops, with an unknown killer after him, our stalwart cabbie must become the hero and solve the murder or become the next dead body.

The laughs come as fast as the bullets in this gem of a mystery and the poker-game climax had me marveling at the cleverness of Westlake’s plot. This is just plain mayhem fun from a master story teller. Give yourself a treat and pick it up.

LAMPLIGHTER

LAMPLIGHTER
(Monster Blood Tatoo)
By D.M. Cornish
Putnam Books
736 pages

Last year I had the tremendous joy of discovering the world of Rossamund Bookchild, the orphan raised in a foundling home and at a young age sent out into a remarkable, alien world to seek his fortune as a royal lamplighter. Now if none of this makes any sense to you, it's because D.M. Cornish has invented an entire world to set his story in and it is a world like none you've ever encountered before.

The last time I enjoyed such a rich, complicated literary fabrication was J.K. Rawling's world of boy wizard Harry Potter. There's a lot of similarities between Potter and Bookchild. There's also a huge dose of Charles Dickens and lots and lots of J.R.R. Tolkien. Cornish has woven a unique world so rich in details that it completely swallows the reader with it's multiple layers of social, economic and political history. But the most important thing you need to know about the lad's world is that it has monsters; of all manner and variety.

In this second installment of what is to be a trilogy, young Rossamund arrives at the Lamplighter training hall to begin his training. Lamplighters are much like a national militia whose task it is to keep the empire's roadways well illuminated via a chain of lamppost that dot every single road in the empire, be they crowded municipal lanes or the off the map frontier paths. These brave men must keep the dark at bay, maintaining a tenuous grasp on civilization. Rossamund is proud to become one of them.

Yet as the story unfolds, he is witness to repeated monster attacks, their frequency puzzling to his superiors. He also discovers political corruption among the fort's command and a dark, terrible secret hidden within its walls. Fortunately he is not alone in his adventures being aided by a truly unusual group of physcially altererd characters. There is Thrednody, the young girl with the mental psychic abilities to hurt monsters, Sebastipole, the human lie-detector and the beautiful Europe, who can shoot lightning from her hands and is a famous monster-killer.

Like most readers, I'm always leery of long books by new writers. Having thoroughly enjoyed book one in this series, I was completely undadunted by this volume's 700 plus pages. I knew it would contain the maximum amount of adventure, thrills and wonder. I wasn't disappointed in the least. In fact, now that I've finished it, I can't wait for the final chapter and I hope it's even longer! You can never ever have too much of a good thing.

The Hair Club President

There use to be a popular television commercial for hair growth products on television that I always got a big kick out. The sales dude identified himself as the president of the company and at the end of each segment, he'd hold up a before picture of himself bald as a cue ball and say, "I'm not only the Hair Club president, I'm also a client."

Which is why the logo at the top of this column. You see, I am not only a reader and reviewer, I'm also a writer. But it would be inappropriate for me to ever review my own work here so I thought I'd merely announce the fact that they do exist and you might want to check them out.

For the past few years, artist Rob Davis and I have produced pulp novels and anthologies under the Airship 27 Production banner. All our books are published via Cornerstone Book Publishers of New Orleans, Michael Poll publisher. And they are all available through all the major distributors world wide, to include Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. etc. We even have our own on-line store (http://stores.lulu.com/airship27). Please, stop on by and check out our titles. If you enjoy fast paced, action packed fiction, then I think we have something special for you. Thanks ever, Ron.

THE FIRST QUARRY

THE FIRST QUARRY
By Max Allan Collins
Hard Case Crime
Available Aug. 08
206 pages

Max Allan Collins is one of those writers capable of turning a plot upside down in just a few short paragraphs and giving his readers an entirely new look at something old and worn. That he now does it with an entire series is simply terrific fun.

Back in 1976, the author of the NATE HELLER books and THE ROAD TO PERDITION, began a new series of crime thrillers about a professional hitman known as Quarry. He followed it up with six other volumes, the final being the aptly titled THE LAST QUARRY, published in 2007 by Hard Case Crime. As I reviewed in this very column, it was a great read and fitting end to this dark, always mesmerizing saga. And of course lots of us were sad that there just wouldn’t be any further Quarry tales to enjoy. Boy, we’re we ever wrong.

After telling us his professional killer’s last assignment, Collins flips the entire stage end over and end and now offers up THE FIRST QUARRY. Yup, it’s the juicy, razor blade to the throat hor douvere after we’ve already devoured the bullet blasting dessert. Collins is one manipulative S.O.B. God bless him.

Coming home from Vietnam, our hero finds his wife shacking up with a neighbor. When Quarry confronts him, the man laughs in his face. Quarry drops a car on him. He’s spontaneous and resourceful, if nothing else. Released by the police because the D.A. isn’t about to take a recently returned veteran to court, Quarry is approached by a very rich man who calls himself the Broker. He offers Quarry steady employment as a professional assassin, a trade he learned from the U.S. Army and became quite proficient at in the rice fields and jungles on ‘Nam. The pragmatic Quarry accepts and is there christened with the name Quarry. You really didn’t think it was his real name, did you?

Once these required preambles are done with, Collins serves up a truly twisted gem of a thriller for his freshly minted killer. Quarry’s target is an English professor at a small college. The fellow is writing an expose their customer does not want finished. By the time Quarry discovers their employer is actually a mob boss from Chicago, he’s already killed three people, made love to two beautiful women and become entangled in gang war. Just your typical day at the office for Quarry. There’s the adage that one should always save the best for last, but with THE FIRST QUARRY, that theory sinks like a body with cement boots. This is one of Collins’ most satisfying thrillers, deftly mixing action, suspense, sex and humor into a cocktail that will knock your socks off!!! Don’t miss it!

DOSSOUYE

DOSSOUYE
By Charles R. Saunders
Sword & Soul Media
193 pages

In 1978, writer Charles Saunders submitted a story entitled Abewe’s Sword to the paperback anthology, AMAZONS, edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson and published by DAW books. With the then popularity of Conan and other sword and sorcery heroes, the conceit of this volume was to focus the spotlight on women warriors. No stranger to this genre, Saunders had by then given the world his greatest character, Imaro, the black hero who inhabited ancient Africa. Delving back into this setting again, he now envisioned a tall, brave and beautiful female soldier named Dossouye.

In the 1980s he added three stories more to this series, Gimmile’s Song, Shiminege’s Mask and Marwe’s Forest. In 2002, he saw the possibility of collecting these adventures and rewrote several while adding a fifth to round out the narrative; Obenga’s Drum. This volume is that collection.

Unlike Imaro, Dossouye grew up as a part of an elite fighting force, ahosi (female warriors) of the Abomey Kingdom. In this kingdom, all the ahosi eschew marriage and family for their service to the Leopard King, the ruler of the land. They wear ankle bracelets that identify them as his brides and only when those rings are broken by the King’s decree are they allowed to marry and go on with their own, personal lives.

As always, Saunders is a master of inventiveness and Dossouye and her battle sisters go into battle riding domesticated water buffaloes. Our heroine’s is a massive bull she calls Gbo. Rider and animal are inseperable and when in combat become an efficient team capable of devastating the enemy’s ranks.

In the opening story, Dossouye is chosen by the spirits of her ancestors to wield a magical sword which will save her people from an invading army. She accomplishes this feat but at great personal sacrifice. At tale’s end she is forced into self-exile, never to return home and she sets out to explore the vast, unknown lands to the East, where a great forest rises up out of the earth. It is in this alien world that the remaining four adventures occur and each is a gem of both action and human drama. Dossouye is a complex character and Saunders deftly explores her inner most thoughts and emotions as she adapts to her new life, alone in a new land filled with all manner of exotic peoples and creatures. This collection is clearly the set up for a proposed, full length novel which I pray is not too far in the writing. I am most eager to take up with this ahosi and her pet war-bull.

Final note, due to the lack good sense on the part of today’s publishing community; Saunders had to resort to self-publishing the terrific book. The only sure place you can get a copy is at (http://www.lulu.com/content/2322980). The book sports an absolutely gorgeous cover by one Mshindo Kuumba. If you truly enjoy sword and sorcery done right, you must get this book. You can thank me, later.

THE TALE OF URSO BRUNOV AND THE WHITE EMPEROR

THE TALE OF URSO BRUNOV
AND THE WHITE EMPEROR
Story by Brian Jacques
Art by Alexi Natchev
Philomel Books
45 pages

As a bibliophile, I truly love all books and have a real fondness for quality childrens’ books. THE TALE OF URSO BRUNOV AND THE WHITE EMPEROR is a gorgeous package with a marvelous adventure tale by the noted creator of the Redwall series.

Miniature bear chieftain, Urso Brunov, lives in a forest at the top of the world. When two young polar bears, a sister and brother, find themselves stranded on the shore of his kingdom, the little bear comes their rescue immediately. He bravely shoos off a pack of dangerous wolves and then promises the young polar bears he will see them safely returned to their home, the land of the Land of Rainbow Lights.

To achieve this goal, the crafty Urso calls on the air of animals both on the land and in the sea; from wild boards, fleet deer and a giant, friendly whale. In the end he brings the lost bears home and there is rewarded by their father, the noble White Emperor Blanco. The story moves at a fast clip and is never boring for a minute.

Add to this the beautiful art of Alexi Natchev. His work is simplistic and at the same time properly detailed. His pages are never overcrowded and his compositions are balanced and beautiful. He captures emotions with ease and brings these exotic creatures to life with his use of vibrant colors.

This is an excellent book for any child and adult willing to take a few minutes to explore its vivid, imaginative world where a tiny bear is truly giant-size hero. Here is hoping we haven’t seen the last of Urso Brunvo.

THE MAX

THE MAX
By Ken Bruen & Jason Starr
Hard Case Crime
222 pages
Available in Aug.08

Having read and enjoyed the first two books in this hilarious series, I was really anxious to get my hands on this one. It is the first continuing series Hard Case Crime has ever produced and they’ve set the bar extremely high. In BUST, Bruen and Starr introduced us to the most self-delusional shyster in New York entrepreneur, Max Fisher and his nymphomaniac secretary-lover, Angela Petrakos. The two, with the help of an Irish psychopath, plotted the murder of Max’s wife. Through a serious of mind-boggling snafus, they not only managed to do the dirty deed, but also escaped the clutches of the law in the process. Well, two of them anyway.

In the second installment, SLIDE, Max ends up becoming petty drug dealer with Al Pacino Scarface fantasies. Meanwhile, Angela, having fled to Ireland, returns with yet another killer and this time the body count really mounts quickly. In the end, Max’s luck finally runs out and he’s on his way to prison, while the lovely Angela has barely made it on a plane and for a second time gets away free and clear.

THE MAX begins with Angela having settled on a small Greek island and Max arriving at Attica where he is going to serve his sentence. After SLIDE, I honestly didn’t think these two writers could possible top the sheer insanity of that entry. By the end of chapter one, they had proved me completely wrong and I was laughing my fool head off. Max is perhaps the dumbest gangster ever created and how he manages not only to survive in the pen, but ends up running the Big House is sheer brilliant lunacy. Meanwhile the ever sexy Angela is once again up her neck in foul play and leaving a trail of bodies in her wake. She is caught and sent to a women’s prison on an island called Lesbo. All of which is just too funny to properly describe. Don’t worry, she manages to escape, as always.

The subplots in THE MAX, like the first two books, are many and each is deliciously twisted and evil. There isn’t a decent person in this entire book, yet each of them is so marvelously brought to life, I could care less. Bungling-crook tales are hard to write because most crime writers simply don’t understand the humor inherent in most criminal.

For sheer outright stupidity, the characters in THE MAX take the prize, as you will, if, on the other hand, you are smart enough to pick up this book.

UNDERGROUND

UNDERGROUND
By Kat Richardson
ROC Fantasy
341 pages
Availabe Aug. 2008

It seems like ever since Jim Butcher unleashed the Dresden Files on the world, we’ve become inundated with urban fantasies about Private Eyes with paranormal abilities. Kat Richardson’s Seattle based P.I., Harper Blaine is the newest member of this ever expanding club. In this, her third book, we quickly learn that Blaine was accidentally killed on a previous case and legally dead for two minutes. When she was revived, it was with the ability to see and move in the ghostly dimension she refers to as the Grey. The Grey is inhabited by all kinds of ghosts, zombies and mythological monsters, some friendly, others frightening and dangerous. With each new book, Blaine becomes more adept at dealing with her new sight and gifts but it certainly doesn’t make her “normal” life any easier.

At the start of UNDERGROUND, one of her friends, a street character with a genius for electronics, named Quinton, makes Blaine aware that someone or something is horrendously murdering homeless people who have settled in the mysterious underworld avenues of old Seattle. After a catastrophic fire at the turn the century, the people of this Pacific Coast metropolis reconstructed their city over the skeletons of the old, in the process sealing away an entire hidden urban landscape. The Seattle Underground has been featured in books, documentaries and even as a setting for several horror movies, the most popular being the NIGHT STRANGLER, the second Kolchak feature produced by Dan Curtis and starring the late Darren McGavin. It is an excellent background for a monster tale and that’s what we have here.

Blaine and Quinton soon learn that they are dealing with an ancient Indian monster said to inhabit the area and reappear ever few decades to feed. Because of her ability to cross the boundaries between our world and the Grey, Blaine is the only person with any chance of finding the legendary beast and stopping it. But to do so she will need Quinton’s help and that of several other close friends, all of whom could end up the creature’s next victim for their participation.

Harper Blaine is a likeable character, as are the supporting players in this adventure. Richardson draw’s heavily from her knowledge of the city and its history, much to the story’s enrichment. I’ve never been to Seattle, but after following Blaine through its streets, parks and amazing Underground, I’m ready to book a flight west. UNDERGROUND is a fast paced, edge of your seat fantasy adventure with many surprises and some new wrinkles in this fast growing sub-genre. If you get a kick out of things that go bump into the night, this book is just your ticket. Get it punched now.

OMEGA SOL

OMEGA SOL
By Scott Mackay
ROC Science Fiction
357 pages

I enjoy all kinds of science fiction but all too often am put off by the sub-category referred to as “hard” sci-fi. You know, the kind written by real Phds who’ve graduated from M.I.T. with degrees in quantum-nano-whatever. Nine out of ten times, these geniuses from academia, although brilliant in their respective fields, have absolutely no idea of how to tell a story. Their books are filled with pages and pages of scientific jargon and speculation (remember the what-if part that makes it sci-fi in the first place) with absolutely no concept of characterization or plot development. Of course, what you always hope for when hunting through this genre is that one out of the ten; where the author not only knows his science, he or she also understands how to spin a damn good yarn.

Dr. Cameron Conrad is a physicist and mathematician on the moon about to begin an experiment in hyper-dimensionality which he believes will help unlock the secrets of the universe. Suddenly a giant monolith from the deepest reaches of outer space suddenly appears over them. So strong is its gravitational pull, it wreaks havoc with the Conrad’s field and completely destroys all his equipment. Within the next few hours, everyone stationed at the Gettysburg moon facility is caught up in the monumental puzzle of who or what the monolith is? Where did it come from? Is it really an alien construct and why is it here, in our Solar System?

Conrad is convinced the monolith represents First Contact and attempts to reach out to Builders, as he comes to label them. In the process he is pulled into the monolith and his brain altered. Meanwhile, back on Earth, the military has launched a response force led by a gung-ho marine hero, Colonel Pittman. Pittman is a soldier’s soldier and he lives for combat. He honestly believes the aliens pose a threat and when they begin to siphon hydrogen from our sun, a process which will result in the earth’s total annihilation, Pittman launches a nuclear assault against the monolith.

Meanwhile, recovering in a hospital back on Earth, Cameron, who experienced a very faint contact with the Builders, is convinced they are completely unaware of our existence. He argues we are no more than ants to them and unless he can find a way to make them aware of us, the Earth is doomed. Much of Mackay’s story adopts elements and scenarios from other classic science fiction adventures, notably Arthur C. Clarke’s A SPACE ODESSEY. But what makes his tale unique is his willingness to expand the borders of accepted scientific thinking into areas considered taboo. Mackay proposes that pushed to its limits, physics will eventually come to grips with incalculable math wherein instinct, intuition and yes, even faith will be required to solve the riddles of life. He suggests quite boldly that there is even more to reality than what we can measure with science.

The horrors that befall Earth during the events in OMEGA SOL are devastating and Mackay doesn’t shy away from detailing them accurately in a cautionary example of how truly fragile a basket mankind has store all its eggs. There are times in the book when he narrowly avoids stereotyping Cameron and Pittman as the hero and villain. That he does so and enriches both of them with self-doubts and disbelief is small part of the overall excellence of this book. When I first picked up OMEGA SOL, I allowed myself one chapter to determine if I would finish it or not. That I couldn’t put it down, is why I’m here to give OMEGA SOL major thumbs up.

THE MURDERER VINE

THE MURDERER VINE
By Shepard Rifkin
Hard Case Crime
254 pages

This is one hell of a good book. Unlike a lot of crime titles that aspire to the label of noire, this one delivers. It is a hard edged, brutal look at America in the early sixties set against the backdrop of racial prejudice as it existed in the Deep South.

Joe Dunne is a Korean War veteran who makes a decent living as a private eye in New York City. He’s even got a cute, blonde secretary named Kirby, a former Georgia peach. The trouble with Dunne is he’s wants more and that greed is his Achilles’ heel. When the son of a wealthy industrialist goes missing in Mississippi while working on voter registration for blacks, his father believes he’s been murdered. He hires Dunne not only to prove that assumption, but to find the men responsible and kill them. In short order Dunne is promised half a million dollars to murder five men. He accepts the jobs.

Dunne meticulously plans the assignment by creating a bogus identity for himself and Kirby, who has convinced him to bring her along as proper Southern camouflage. She is not aware of his actual mission and assumes he’s only looking for the murderers. Of course once they arrive in the sleepy little community of Okalusa, Dunne must play the part of a bigot to ingratiate himself with the suspects, one of which is the town’s redneck sheriff. It is a repulsive role and he despises himself for having to assume it. Through Kirby, Dunne sees the South as it truly is, a divided land still nursing its wounds from a hundred year old war with the North.

Rifkin captures the atmosphere of the times perfectly and although it was easy to see the tragic ending half way through the book, that is what noir is all about. Noir stories are about being trapped on a runaway train whose tracks go off the cliff. You see the wreck coming and there’s nothing you, or the protagonist, can do about it. Noir is being a victim of fate and that’s the tragedy of Joe Dunne. It’s a fate he chose for himself.

This is one of the finest noir thrillers ever penned. Kudos to Hard Case Crime for bringing it back. It deserves a huge audience.