Tip the Wink

The Fork, The Witch and the Worm by Christopher Paolini, fantasy, Alfred Knopf, 2018

If you liked The Inheritance Cycle, consisting of the four novels Eragon, Eldest, Brisinger and Inheritance, then this is for you. If you didn’t read those, or read them and didn’t care for them, you might as well skip this collection of three short stories (or two stories and a short novella), as it refers to and depends on understanding the characters and places from those four books.

I did read them, and liked them quite a bit, and was sorry when the last book was finished, so I was glad to see this, a surprise discovery at the book store.

“The Fork” features Murtaugh, Eragon’s brother. The next two stories take place in their new – yet to be completed – aerie, which will be the home of Eragon and his dragon Saphra and the humans and dragons as eggs hatch. “The Witch” refers to witch Angela. The third story, “The Worm” tells a tale of the Urgal, and “The Worm of Kulkas”.

All fine tales, though less than a fan of the Cycle would hope for. Still, quite enjoyable.

So how about you?
What have you been reading?

The Kelloggs, The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek by Howard Markel, biography. When I was a child, I remember my parents taking the family Pomona to see the Kellogg horse show. Beautiful Arabians in the ring prancing. I also remember we ate Kellogg Corn Flakes for breakfast. Kellogg was a household name for us.

This fat dual biography of the brothers Kellogg tells of their growing up as competing boys, their strict upbringing, their father’s opinions about health and wellness and how the family eventually became both wealthy and torn apart. Overly long and wordy, but fascinating nevertheless.

A Most Diabolical Plot by Tim Symonds, mystery short stories. These six Sherlock Holmes pastiche stories are just fair. There’s nothing here to make me seek out other writing by the author, featuring Holmes or any other character. Disappointing.

So how about you?
What have you been reading?

Two fat anthologies and a slender tween/YA sf story this time. My reading has been very scattered.

Bibliomysteries edited by Otto Penzler, mystery short story anthology. Very enjoyable.
CONTENTS:
• “An Acceptable Sacrifice” by Jeffery Deaver deals with a Mexican drug lord with a taste for rare books.
• “Pronghorns of the Third Reich” by CJ Box deals with a man who believes himself wronged and seeks a book collection in order to square things.
• “The Book of Virtue” by Ken Bruen is next. Told in the first person, it deals with an inheritance that consists of a single book.
• “The Books of Ghosts” by Reed Farrell Coleman was a very interesting story. The Book of Ghosts is about a legendary book written in a Nazi Concentration Camp.
• “The Final Testament” by Peter Blauner is a nice piece of historical fiction dealing with Sigmund Freud!
• “What’s in a Name?” by Thomas H Cook relates the story of a world where WWII never took place. In this alternate history, a man is trying to publish a controversial book.
• In the “Book Club” by Loren D Estleman, the prolific author’s hero is a former detective turned bookseller!
• “Death Leaves a Bookmark” by William Link deals with a certain Lieutenant Columbo, who likely needs no introduction!
• In “The Book Thing” by Laura Lippman, the author writes about a real-world bookstore where all books are free.
• “The Scroll” by Anne Perry deals with a scroll found inside an old volume from an estate sale, which has very strange properties…
• “It’s in the Book” by Mickey Spillane and Max Allen Collins. Yes, it’s a Micky Spillane story.
• “The Long Sonata of the Dead” by Andrew Taylor finds two old foes running into each other at the London Library…
• In “Rides a Stranger” by David Bell, a man discovers that his father may have written a rare book…
• “The Caxton Lending Library” by John Connolly deals with a most unusual library in a most unusual place.
• “The Bookcase” by Nelson DeMille tells of a man who died when his heavy bookcase fell on him. Was it an accident, suicide, or murder?

Bibliomysteries II edited by Otto Penzler, mystery short story anthology. Fifteen more mystery stories featuring books. I don’t have the contents on the one, but though slightly weaker than the first volume, still very enjoyable.

Space Hostages by Nicholas Fisk, science fiction YA novel. A “space ship” or “flying saucer” lands on the green of a small British village. Out steps… a human. He’s a test pilot who has stolen the experimental craft, and he has an agenda.

The village children are fascinated, and when he offers them a look inside they scurry to the loading platform and are lifted up. But instead of returning them to the village green, the ship takes off, destination unknown. The children are space hostages. This is a pretty simple tween/YA science fiction story. Probably left to those readers.

So how about you?
What have you been reading?

The Complete Mike Shayne, Private Eye, Guandanaland Comic, 2018

Then, on November 9 of 2018, he posted this on his blog Rough Edges:

“A number of years ago, I posted (see above) about the Mike Shayne comic book series published by Dell in 1961 and ’62. Dell was publishing the Mike Shayne novels in paperback, very successfully, and I suppose someone there decided a comic book version of the character might work, too. That didn’t really pan out, since there were only three issues. I’d heard about them for years but never came across any copies. However, they’ve recently been reprinted in a nice trade paperback edition by some outfit called Gwandanaland Comics, so I picked up a copy and finally read them after all these years.

Each issue is based on one of the novels by Davis Dresser writing as Brett Halliday: THE PRIVATE PRACTICE OF MICHAEL SHAYNE, BODIES ARE WHERE YOU FIND THEM, and HEADS—YOU LOSE (originally published as BLOOD ON THE BLACK MARKET). By the way, nowhere in this reprint or the original comics is there any mention of Dresser or Halliday, and the copyright is by Dell Publishing Company. Any kid coming across these back in the Sixties who wasn’t familiar with the books would have thought Shayne had been created for the comics.

Each of the source novels has a pretty complicated plot, as was common in the Shayne series, and the comic book versions actually do a pretty solid, faithful job of adapting them. They’re toned down a little, but not much. You’ve still got murder, blackmail, adultery, and more murder. I can imagine a kid reading these and getting lost in all the twists and turns of the plots.”

Thanks for all that, James!

My take:
Well, I got a copy of the reprints, and I completely agree with James. If you’re a Mike Shayne fan, this is for you, otherwise, skip it. I’d read all three of the novels, so I had a pretty good idea what was happening, and they are still a little confusing. Still, good stuff.

So how about you?
What have you been reading?

The Language of the Dead by Stephen Kelly, mystery. Bombing runs by the Luftwaffe are only the most obvious sign of conflict in journalist Kelly’s first novel. It’s July 1940. Despite the proximity of a Spitfire factory, nobody thinks there’s anything in the Hampshire village of Quimby that the Führer would want to destroy. So the locals have plenty of leisure to ask who thrust farmhand Will Blackwell’s pitchfork through his neck, carved a cross onto his forehead and impaled his scythe in his chest, and who beat pregnant infirmary volunteer Emily Fordham to death along the roadside, and other seemingly unrelated (but we mystery readers know better, don’t we?) crimes.

DCI Thomas Lamb and DS David Wallace, both facing running battles in their private lives, wonder how the crimes are related and what Peter Wilkins, the mute teenager who lives on Lord Jeffrey Pembroke’s estate, may know about the case—and may be trying to communicate through his beautifully executed, deeply disturbing drawings of insects.

I liked much of it, but the attitudes of Lamb and Wallace put me off.

Cape Diamond by Ron Corbett, mystery. This is the second of Corbett’s mysteries, both featuring detective Frank Yakabuski. Set near the Northern Divide — as was the first book — this one opens with Yakabuski called to investigate a gruesome crime scene. A body has been left hanging from a schoolyard fence. On closer inspection, Yak finds a large diamond in the murder victim’s mouth.

Two criminal gangs — the Shiners and the Travellers — are fighting each other, and Yakabuski turns to his father, a now-retired detective who has a long history with the gangs, for advice in the interrogation. Is the conflict over the murder of two men? The kidnapping of a little girl? Or, possibly, the diamond found in Augustus Morrissey’s mouth? As if this weren’t enough for one detective, a serial killer is taking a deadly road trip through the United States, heading towards the Northern Divide.

This one is really good, and recommended, once you have read the first book.

So how about you?
What have you been reading?