Category Archives: Books & Reading

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 … Continue reading →

Jeopardy Is My Job by Stephen Marlowe, © May 1962, Gold Medal 1962 paperback, mystery featuring Chester Drum I picked this up at the L.A. paperback show, Lessercon, a few years back and finally got around to taking it off the shelf to read … Continue reading →

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, … Continue 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 … Continue 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 … Continue 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. … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

Age of War by Michael Sullivan, fantasy. I originally read about this fantasy series, The Legends of the First Empire, in the blog Black Gate, and was sufficiently intrigued to get the first book, The Age of Myth, from the library. At the time … Continue reading →