THE COZYVILLE WEREWOLF

 

THE COZYVILLE WEREWOLF

Ghost Squad # 1

By Darryle Purcell

Strange Particle Press

171 pgs

 

Lots of old English high school teachers were heard telling their students to “write what you know.” In this, the kick-off to his newest series of pulp adventures, writer Darryle Purcell takes that admonish to heart in delivering editor/opinion writer Mike Scott. Mike’s a happily married Vietnam veteran employed as the editor of a small newspaper in a pleasant Arizona community. That’s a mirror image of the author, whereas the adventure that ensues is purely the product of Mr. Purcell’s active imagination. 

For Mike, everything seems fine, until the day the new publisher, a radical woke liberal arrives and fires him. Adding insult to injury, within several days, his own mystery-writing aunt is given his editor’s job as her politics echo those of the new publisher. To drown his woes, Mike goes to a local riverside bar only to find himself in a ghost-bar tended to by the late silent screen star, Douglas Fairbanks. Also present in this weird watering-hole are Peter Lorre and Jean Harlow among others ghost celebrities. By now poor Mike is beginning to think he’s losing his mind.

It doesn’t help that soon after, his spiteful aunt is found murdered in her office, cause of death, drowning. Immediately Fairbanks offers to help Mike solve the murder and learn who is behind all the weird things happening in Cozyville. Phony psychics are involved, the chamber of commerce is attending seances and a bizarre bull-headed demon is after Mike and his allies.

Once again, Purcell lets loose the craziness in a comedy thriller that is just plain fun. He has a comedic sense that never wavers and through the chills and spills, nary a bad joke is wasted. We really like Doug Fairbanks and the Ghost Squad. We’ll be anxious to see what they, and Scott, get into next.

TINY TIME MACHINE

 

TINY TIME Machine

The Complete Trilogy

By John E. Stith

An Amazing Selects Edition

486 pgs

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DJ3M6JBH

https://amazingstories.com/store/

 

Every now and then a science fiction book comes along that is simply fun to read. Most  of these are science fantasies or space operas and not what is labelled Hard Science. It is rare that one finds a rollicking, fun sf adventure under the Hard Science umbrella. This is clearly one of those treasures.  

Meg Vauntage’s mother died when she was a young teenager. Now, a rebellious young woman, she’s constantly butting heads with her widowed father who rarely pays her any attention. What Meg doesn’t realize is that her father is obsessed with inventing a time machine that will allow him to go back in time and save Meg’s mother.  

As the book opens, Meg, and a young man named Josh, are wanted by the San Francisco police for misdemeanor crimes against corporations who poison the environment. Fleeing to her father’s lab, they arrive to find him dying of a gunshot wound. With his last breath, he tells Meg to guard his cell-phone. Confused by this cryptic order, Meg, with Josh’s help, examines the phone and discovers it is a functioning time-machine that will allow them to travel to the future.  

“Tiny Time Machine,” was first written as three novellas. Now they have been collected in this omnibus edition. The first tale has Meg and Josh discovering a devastating end of the world scenario in the future and are challenged to prevent it. In the second tale, they, with the help of a futuristic AI entity, manage to travel backwards into the past, their goal, to save Meg’s father. And finally, with the third chapter, Meg explores the possibility of being able to save her mother. 

The action, from page one, is nonstop. Meg and Josh, and the supporting cast are beautiful realized and a joy to accompany in their wild escapades. “Tiny Time Machine” is a gem by a truly gifted writer. Pick it up, we think you’ll love it.

NOT BORN OF WOMAN

 

NOT BORN OF WOMAN

Paradise Investigations, Book 1

By Teel James Glenn

Macabre Ink

211 pgs

 

As strange as it may sound, Mary Shelley’s classic character, the Frankenstein monster, has been utilized as the hero in quite a few series. What comes to mind is the recent comic book series wherein Joe Frankenstein is a mobster. Then we have Dean Koontz memorable paperback series which had the creature battling his creator in modern time as the doctor is the true villain wishing to rule mankind. Thus, when picking up Teel James Glenn latest offering and discovering the monster as a private eye in 1930s New York, we were both surprised and delighted. 

Glenn’s hero, now calling himself Adam Paradise, is the same patchwork human we discovered in Shelley’s book. He has survived a few hundred years in the cold of the Arctic realizing he is somewhat immortal. Returning to civilization, and New York City specifically, his goal is to discover his own purpose for being while studying the ways of humanity.

In this first of what is obviously intended to be series, Paradise is hired by a young woman from a Romani family, i.e. of the gypsy culture, to retrieve a lost necklace of importance to her clan. The woman’s older brother sold the item to a pawnbroker to pay off gambling debts. When confronting the buyer, Paradise finds himself crossing paths with a local Mob Boss and the police. His pal, detective Tommy Shane, is dealing with a serial killer who targets young women and a Catholic priest receiving death threats. If that stew plot wasn’t complicated enough, Paradise then discovers German Bundist promoting their Nazis philosophy are also after the same necklace.

With “Not Born of Woman,” Glenn weaves a fast-paced narrative as told by his protagonist. The supporting characters are pulp colorful, but what fascinated this reviewer was Paradise’s philosophical musings on life, death, good and evil. There is a depth to this thriller not often found in such stories. Highly recommended. This is one of the writer’s best.