Tip the Wink

click to enlarge

Please Pass the Poison by Frederick C. Davis, pulp mystery, first in Bill Brent series. Brent is a tough reporter who has been forced into the role of love columnist for The Recorder newspaper. Published between 1941 and 1946, these novels appeared in Dime Detective. In this, the first novel in the series, Brent gets mixed up in a poisoning case, against the wishes of both his editor and a rival reporter. Not bad.

Fear by Bob Woodward, non-fiction. What to say about this? A thick book full of often surprising, though on second thought not really that surprising, behind-the-scenes looks at the inner workings of the Trump White House. I shuddered a lot, exclaimed often, shook my head in disgust many times. Read it if you have the stomach.

So how about you?
What have you been reading?

Jeopardy Is My Job by Stephen Marlowe, © May 1962, Gold Medal 1962 paperback, mystery featuring Chester Drum

Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman, (Tess Monaghan #1) mystery. After reading about, and meeting, years ago, Lippman I finally pulled this first in the series off the shelf. As expected, Lippman does an fine job of establishing a sense of place, not surprising since she and her character are Baltimore natives.

Tess is a recently laid off newspaper reporter and is scrambling to earn a living with a few part-time jobs given to her by family members. She is also a rower, and finds solace and sustenance rowing her shell on the river, often with her friend and competitive rower, Rock (Darryl Paxton). Paxton hires Tess to trail his fiance, whom he suspects is carrying on with another man. When there’s a murder, her rowing friend is a suspect and Tess goes to work as an investigator for his lawyer. A good start to a series I’ve heard improves with each book.

Virtual Sabotage by Julie Hyzy, science fictional thriller. In the near future, virtual reality is sophisticated big business, and the environments can be so real-seeming that sometimes clients of the big VR firms get lost in the experience and need someone to pull them out.

When this happens and one of the rescuers find herself in a situation so real physical harm occurs, it’s clear something more than “virtual” is happening, and code can alter life, It’s a huge conspiracy, and someone has to stop it. Interesting.

So how about you?
What have you been reading?

Hawke’s Prey by Reavis Z. Wortham, thriller. This is the first in the Texas Ranger Sonny Hawke series. Ballard, Texas is typical small town west Texas, and not a lot happens there. But the beginning of this book changes that. A terrorist squad shoots up a border patrol stop, then enters Ballard and takes over the Courthouse.

Texas Ranger Sonny Hawke happens to be inside the courthouse, with his school teacher wife, Kelly and her class of high school students, including their twins. The terrorists are an odd bunch, comprised of jihadists, Mexican cartel members and American alt-right militia members. The man in charge put them together in that manner to confound the authorities. The mastermind had a goal, but the guy on the ground in Ballard had a different agenda: terror and control. Expect non-stop action, plenty of shell casings to fly, and because of the 100 year blizzard, plenty of cold and snow. I don’t read much high-action fiction, but I really enjoyed this.

Hawke’s War by Reavis Z. Wortham, thriller. …and this one as well. The second in the series, it picks up shortly after the above described book, and has just as much, perhaps more, action. This time Hawke is lured into an ambush in Big Bend National Park, where he is captured by some of the “bad guys” who escaped in the first book. It’s a grueling time for Texas Ranger Hawke, as authorities search for him and his captors head for the border to deliver him to the vengeful brother of the man Hawke killed in the first book. Tons of action. I liked it even better than the first book and am waiting for book 3.

Billy Boyle by James R. Benn, WWII mystery. This paperback was a freebie way back when Left Coast Crime was in Monterey, CA. I brought it home and stashed it away with the other book bag goodies, and just recently pulled it out to give it a try.

I enjoyed it more than I expected, both character and setting, World War II England, were good, and American Billy Boyle, who was a Boston cop before the draft, winds up as an aide to some guy named Ike. He stumbles his way to a satisfying conclusion to the murder mystery. I may try the next one, which the library has in ebook format.

So how about you?
What have you been reading?

The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi, science fiction. The Interdependency series number two. This is the second in the series, following The Collapsing Empire. The Interdependency—humanity’s interstellar empire—is on the verge of collapse. The extra-dimensional conduit that makes travel between the stars possible – the Flow – is collapsing, leaving entire systems and human civilizations stranded.

Emperox Grayland II of the Interdependency is ready to take desperate measures to help ensure the survival of billions. But arrayed before her are those who believe the collapse of the Flow is a myth—or at the very least an opportunity to an ascension to power.

Scalzi sets up an interesting scenario for a star empire facing it’s possible end, and as always his characters are intriguing, if somewhat foul-mouthed. I read this in a couple of days, and it’s obvious from the ending there will be another in the series. Bring it on, Scalzi!

The Spider: The Doom Legion by Will Murray, new pulp adventure. From the jacket blurb:
“When a weird meteor crashes in the heart of Central Park on Halloween night, its uncanny light attracts the attention of Richard Wentworth—alias The Spider! Investigating, the millionaire criminologist encounters a maelstrom of madness in the making. Drawn, too, are two sinister figures from the past—international master criminals who join forces to harness the power of the pulsing meteorite. Alone, The Spider confronts his greatest challenge, but he is not alone this time. For the unholy power of the meteorite draws James Christopher, alias Operator 5, and another government agent from the past, known only as G-8…. Together, this heroic trio must battle a pair of powerful adversaries intent on harnessing and unleashing the malevolent power of the Green Meteorite. But how can they work together when one of them is branded an outlaw?”

Pretty good pulp story, Murray is really good at these.

So how about you?
What have you been reading?

ASTOUNDING – John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee, Day Street Books, October 2018 hardcover, 544 pages.

I started reading reading Astounding Science Fiction in 1955, at age ten. I loved the covers, the stories, the interior illustrations (Kelly Freas was my favorite) and the book reviews. I completely ignored the editorial material, and generally skipped the fact article, unless it was by Willie Ley, whose articles on rockets I found interesting. But my focus was on the short stories and serialized longer works. I gobbled up every issue as it came in the mail.

A few years later I  discovered a used magazine store in downtown Los Angeles who sold back issues by the year, tied in twine. Over three visits I bought all of 1950 through 1954. I read and loved those issues too, again skipping the editorial content, in which I had no interest. For me, then Astounding was a fiction magazine, pure and simple. Though later I read both Galaxy and Fantasy & Science Fiction, Astounding remained my favorite up to and a little past the time it changed name its to Analog.

When I heard about this book and read some reviews, I thought it would be just what I wanted: a book about the magazine and it’s editor’s influence on the SF of the decades 40s-50s-60s. This book is not that. The subtitle might indicate the author’s intentions, but with the word ASTOUNDING in caps at the head, I think the complete title is misleading. Certainly, there’s not really a lot about the golden age of science fiction.

I was extremely disappointed. It was not at all what I wanted or expected. There is far, far too much focus on L. Ron Hubbard and his obsessions of Dianetics and, later, Scientology. The book also focuses on how haywire Campbell became under the influence of Hubbard. Deleting all of the Hubbard material from the book would have improved it greatly, as would have the inclusion of the many other authors who contributed to science fiction’s “golden age” through their contributions to the magazine. Too bad.

How about you?
What have you been reading lately?

I’ve read all of the Holmes canon several times, and I’ve read and enjoyed many pastiches. I’ve also come across some that were fairly wretched. One never knows what is in store when starting a new Holmes story collection or novel.

The Will of the Dead by George Mann, Titan Books 2013 trade paper

I’ve been buying and reading some of the Sherlock Holmes pastiches being published by Titan Books, and enjoying them to various degrees.

The story opens with a death, an old man stumbles and falls down the steep stairs in his home. In the morning, the maid finds him, lying at the foot of the stairs, dead of a broken neck. The four nieces and nephews of the man are staying in the house after a birthday celebration the day before.

The attorney is called, but surprisingly the will is nowhere to be found. Thus instead of each child getting a quarter of the sizable estate, the eldest child will get it all. A younger child goes to Holmes to see if he can find the will and restore his share.

That’s the basic plot, and it is well written and the characters move the story along in spite of what may seem an obvious criminal and motive. But wait, there is  a secondary plot, because this isn’t just a Holmes pastiche, it’s a steam punk Holmes pastiche.

To say more might spoil things, so I’ll just add that I enjoyed this one, and you might too.